In a previous article we listed 60 soft skills, which if practised at the workplace, could boost your professional life.
Subjects like financial management, marketing management, HR management can be taught in the classroom and can be studied at home. But not soft skills. Soft skills are acquired and experienced on the spot and cannot be developed by merely reading textbooks.
The soft skills you gain will equip you to excel in your professional life and in your personal life. It is a continuous learning process.
The 60 soft skills mentioned can be classified into corporate skills, employability skills and life skills. In some parts of the world like in USA and Australia, soft skills are also known as world skills.
Corporate skills
These are generally CEO level skills, but if you are familiar with them you will be in a position to guide your boss towards success ie working together for a common goal as a team. You can become a courageous follower as mentioned by Ira Chaleff in his award-winning book Courageous Follower: Standing Up To and For Our Leaders.
These skills include: ~ Political sensitivity. ~ Business and commercial awareness. ~ Strategic awareness. ~ Understanding funding streams and mechanisms. ~ Information management.~ Organisation and control.~ Team building.~ Communication and persuasion. ~ Networking and public relations.~ Leading change.
Must-read: Annoying your colleagues at work?
Employability skills
These have to be mastered by employable graduates and freshers include communication, team working, leadership, initiative, problem solving, flexibility and enthusiasm.
Every skill helps us to learn one more as they overlap each other.
To quote an example, leadership encompasses a number of other skills including cooperating with others, planning and organising, making decisions and verbal communication. Verbal communication itself involves various means of communication, some of which you may find easier than others -- talking over the phone, making a presentation to a group, explaining something to a person with a more limited understanding of the topic for example.
By improving one skill, you may also improve a number of others. In the context of your career planning and development, they are called career management skillsLife skills These skills are related to the head, heart, hands and health ie highly personal and behavioural skills which reflects our personality and naturally helps in personality development. Source: http://www.extension.iastate.edu/learningandliving/main/tlsmodel.htmlWe manage and think with our head. Resilience, keeping records, making wise use of resources, planning/organising and goal setting are 'head' related managerial functions. Service learning, Critical thinking, problem solving, decision making and learning to learn were related to our thinking processes, which we manage with our head. Functions of the heart are relating to people and caring. How do we relate to people? We relate to people by accepting differences, conflict resolutions, social skills, cooperation and communication. The second function we do through our heart is caring. We care through nurturing relationships, sharing, empathy and concern for others. We give and work through our hands. Community service, volunteering, leadership, responsible citizenship and contributions to group effort -- are our way giving back to society. We work through our marketable skills, teamwork and self-motivation to get the things done. Living and being comes under the functions of health. Healthy lifestyle choices, stress management, disease prevention and personal safety are our prime concerns for better living. Self-esteem, self-responsibility, character, managing feelings and self-discipline must be practiced without fail for our well-being. In a nutshell, the essence of life skills is share well, care well and fare well. Things to do everyday
Follow these ten golden rules and enjoy every moment of living.
~ Greet your family members first thing in the morning. If you are not used to this, they will be surprised with your sudden and nice gesture.~ Greet your peers, subordinates and boss once you enter the office. Smile at even the 'security' personnel standing at the gate, who takes care of your safety. ~ Greet your friends along the way and do not ignore them.~ Continously reciprocate to breed communication. If you do not reciprocate at least with a 'thanks' when you get information or a source on your online network or your offline network, you will not be remembered for a long time. If you are not remembered, you are out of your network. ~ Be a proactive listener and empathise with others to command respect.~ While talking to others, your voice, tone and tenor must be audible and soothing. It should not be aggressive or in a shouting mode. ~ Dress well to suit your profession and to create positive vibes in your workplace. If you are a sales representative, do not go out with printed shirts and jeans, which may turn down your customer. ~ Political and religious comments must be avoided at all costs in the workplace, when you are in a group.~ Your communication should not provoke others.
~ Do not speak ill of others if you can help it.
Thursday, June 28, 2007
The top 60 soft skills at work
Amit Kumar did his M Tech from IIT, New Delhi. He has an MBA from IIM, Ahmedabad. But he still could not get the job of his choice during campus recruitment.
Reason: Blame it on his soft skills. Or rather the lack of them. These include communication, listening, negotiation, etiquette, language skills etc. Hence, he could not compete with his fellow students who got better jobs.
Part II: How to improve your soft skills
Soft skills play a vital role for professional success; they help one to excel in the workplace and their importance cannot be denied in this age of information and knowledge. Good soft skills -- which are in fact scarce -- in the highly competitive corporate world will help you stand out in a milieu of routine job seekers with mediocre skills and talent.
The Smyth County Industry Council, a governing body based in the US, conducted a survey recently. The results of the survey was called the Workforce Profile which found "an across-the-board unanimous profile of skills and characteristics needed to make a good employee." The people most likely to be hired for available jobs have what employers call "soft skills".
Here were some of the findings according to the workforce study:
The most common traits, mentioned by virtually every employer, were:
~ Positive work ethic.
~ Good attitude.
~ Desire to learn and be trained.
Mohan Rao, a technical director with Emmellen Biotech Pharmaceuticals Ltd, Mumbai defines a 'good attitude: "It is a behavioural skill, which cannot be taught. However it can be developed through continuous training. It represents the reactive nature of the individual and is about looking at things with the right perspective. You must be ready to solve problems proactively and create win-win situations. And you must be able to take ownership ie responsibility for your actions and lead from the front without calling it quits at the most critical moment."Most of the business leaders observed that they could find workers who have "hard skills" ie the capability to operate machinery or fulfill other tasks, but many potential hires lack the "soft skills" that a company needs. CEOs and human resource managers said they are ready to hire workers who demonstrate a high level of "soft skills" and then train them for the specific jobs available. The ever-changing impact of technology has given hard-skills-only workers a short shelf life.
According to results of the Workforce Profile, (source: www.workforce.com) the more valuable employee is one who can grow and learn as the business changes.
Soft skills "are as important, if not more important, than traditional hard skills to an employer looking to hire -- regardless of industry or job type. This could offer a major breakthrough as educators and training providers seek to develop and cluster training courses to fit business and industry needs."Top 60 soft skillsThe Workforce Profile defined about 60 "soft skills", which employers seek. They are applicable to any field of work, according to the study, and are the "personal traits and skills that employers state are the most important when selecting employees for jobs of any type."1. Math.2. Safety.3. Courtesy.4. Honesty.5. Grammar.6. Reliability.7. Flexibility.8. Team skills.9. Eye contact. 10. Cooperation. 11. Adaptability.12. Follow rules.13. Self-directed.14 Good attitude. 15. Writing skills. 16. Driver's license. 17. Dependability. 18. Advanced math. 19. Self-supervising. 20. Good references. 21. Being drug free. 22. Good attendance. 23. Personal energy. 24. Work experience. 25. Ability to measure. 26. Personal integrity.27. Good work history. 28. Positive work ethic.29. Interpersonal skills. 30. Motivational skills. 31. Valuing education. 32. Personal chemistry. 33. Willingness to learn. 34. Common sense. 35. Critical thinking skills. 36. Knowledge of fractions. 37. Reporting to work on time. 38. Use of rulers and calculators. 39. Good personal appearance. 40. Wanting to do a good job.41. Basic spelling and grammar. 42. Reading and comprehension. 43. Ability to follow regulations. 44. Willingness to be accountable.45. Ability to fill out a job application. 46. Ability to make production quotas.47. Basic manufacturing skills training. 48. Awareness of how business works.49. Staying on the job until it is finished.50. Ability to read and follow instructions.51. Willingness to work second and third shifts. 52. Caring about seeing the company succeed. 53. Understanding what the world is all about. 54. Ability to listen and document what you have heard.55. Commitment to continued training and learning.56. Willingness to take instruction and responsibility.57. Ability to relate to coworkers in a close environment.58. Not expecting to become a supervisor in the first six months.59. Willingness to be a good worker and go beyond the traditional eight-hour day.60. Communication skills with public, fellow employees, supervisors, and customers.
How many soft skills do you possess?
Reason: Blame it on his soft skills. Or rather the lack of them. These include communication, listening, negotiation, etiquette, language skills etc. Hence, he could not compete with his fellow students who got better jobs.
Part II: How to improve your soft skills
Soft skills play a vital role for professional success; they help one to excel in the workplace and their importance cannot be denied in this age of information and knowledge. Good soft skills -- which are in fact scarce -- in the highly competitive corporate world will help you stand out in a milieu of routine job seekers with mediocre skills and talent.
The Smyth County Industry Council, a governing body based in the US, conducted a survey recently. The results of the survey was called the Workforce Profile which found "an across-the-board unanimous profile of skills and characteristics needed to make a good employee." The people most likely to be hired for available jobs have what employers call "soft skills".
Here were some of the findings according to the workforce study:
The most common traits, mentioned by virtually every employer, were:
~ Positive work ethic.
~ Good attitude.
~ Desire to learn and be trained.
Mohan Rao, a technical director with Emmellen Biotech Pharmaceuticals Ltd, Mumbai defines a 'good attitude: "It is a behavioural skill, which cannot be taught. However it can be developed through continuous training. It represents the reactive nature of the individual and is about looking at things with the right perspective. You must be ready to solve problems proactively and create win-win situations. And you must be able to take ownership ie responsibility for your actions and lead from the front without calling it quits at the most critical moment."Most of the business leaders observed that they could find workers who have "hard skills" ie the capability to operate machinery or fulfill other tasks, but many potential hires lack the "soft skills" that a company needs. CEOs and human resource managers said they are ready to hire workers who demonstrate a high level of "soft skills" and then train them for the specific jobs available. The ever-changing impact of technology has given hard-skills-only workers a short shelf life.
According to results of the Workforce Profile, (source: www.workforce.com) the more valuable employee is one who can grow and learn as the business changes.
Soft skills "are as important, if not more important, than traditional hard skills to an employer looking to hire -- regardless of industry or job type. This could offer a major breakthrough as educators and training providers seek to develop and cluster training courses to fit business and industry needs."Top 60 soft skillsThe Workforce Profile defined about 60 "soft skills", which employers seek. They are applicable to any field of work, according to the study, and are the "personal traits and skills that employers state are the most important when selecting employees for jobs of any type."1. Math.2. Safety.3. Courtesy.4. Honesty.5. Grammar.6. Reliability.7. Flexibility.8. Team skills.9. Eye contact. 10. Cooperation. 11. Adaptability.12. Follow rules.13. Self-directed.14 Good attitude. 15. Writing skills. 16. Driver's license. 17. Dependability. 18. Advanced math. 19. Self-supervising. 20. Good references. 21. Being drug free. 22. Good attendance. 23. Personal energy. 24. Work experience. 25. Ability to measure. 26. Personal integrity.27. Good work history. 28. Positive work ethic.29. Interpersonal skills. 30. Motivational skills. 31. Valuing education. 32. Personal chemistry. 33. Willingness to learn. 34. Common sense. 35. Critical thinking skills. 36. Knowledge of fractions. 37. Reporting to work on time. 38. Use of rulers and calculators. 39. Good personal appearance. 40. Wanting to do a good job.41. Basic spelling and grammar. 42. Reading and comprehension. 43. Ability to follow regulations. 44. Willingness to be accountable.45. Ability to fill out a job application. 46. Ability to make production quotas.47. Basic manufacturing skills training. 48. Awareness of how business works.49. Staying on the job until it is finished.50. Ability to read and follow instructions.51. Willingness to work second and third shifts. 52. Caring about seeing the company succeed. 53. Understanding what the world is all about. 54. Ability to listen and document what you have heard.55. Commitment to continued training and learning.56. Willingness to take instruction and responsibility.57. Ability to relate to coworkers in a close environment.58. Not expecting to become a supervisor in the first six months.59. Willingness to be a good worker and go beyond the traditional eight-hour day.60. Communication skills with public, fellow employees, supervisors, and customers.
How many soft skills do you possess?
Make teamwork 'work' for you
The Indian cricket team has often had amazing individual contributors. Its performance has, however, not matched that of the excellent performers within the team. Compare this to the ragtag team in the movie Lagaan who, because of the sheer power of teamwork, were able to defeat the seasoned players in the opposing team.
'Teamwork' was probably one of the first words in management jargon to be overused and quickly become a cliche. And, like most cliched words and phrases, at the heart of the concept lies a powerful truth -- teamwork works and it works wonders.
After the Second World War, Japan was defeated and humiliated; two of their cities razed by powerful atom bombs. It was a country you probably wouldn't bet your money on in 1950. Yet, Japan rose from the ashes. In the decades following World War II, it became the third largest economy in the world. This, despite the fact that it does not have any great natural resources and is rocked by earthquakes and tsunamis.
Japanese companies went on to give tough competition to the tsars of automobile and electronics industry. The 'Made in Japan' symbol suddenly stood for best in quality. American consumers, forgetting the bitterness of Pearl Harbor and the Second World War, were choosing Japanese products over American ones.
This led to a spate of studies into why Japanese companies were outperforming their counterparts in the West. The studies, while identifying numerous socioeconomic and geopolitical factors, identified two intangible traits which gave an edge to the Japanese -- Quality and Teamwork.
Let us try and understand some basic attitudes that would help you become a more effective team member:
What's bigger -- your ego or the team goal?
It seems like an easy call, but many people find it amazingly tough. Teamwork, more than anything else, is a mindset. And it is extremely difficult for us to change our focus from ourselves as individuals to what the team is trying to do.
Most of the time, we are so focused on our own experience and feelings that we tend to ignore what the team is trying to do. If you can shift the limelight from yourself to the task at hand, your contribution and value in the team would increase tremendously. Ironically, when you shift your focus to the team's goal, your ego's needs are almost always automatically met.
The best way to get something...
As a team member, what do you want?
Do you want recognition? Give recognition.
Do you want help? Give help.
Depending upon your world view, you might have an opinion about how 'realistic' this insight really is. Here is a suggestion though, try it. When you 'fight' for recognition or trust or resources, you reaffirm to yourself that there isn't enough of it to go around, leading to a deficient experience.
When you give what you want freely, you tell yourself there is enough of it and manifest that in your team as well.
Your team members really want...
In an organisational context, team members usually have two needs. The first is a need for motivation. The second is the need for competence. Any team member would contribute their best if they want to contribute (motivation) and if they can contribute (competence).
For example: in a game of cricket, I will perform best if I can play the game well (competence) and if I am motivated to perform (motivation). A good team member would identify my immediate need and try to fulfill it. When you interact with other team members, identify what their main need is and try to fulfill it.
If they need competence, coach them, teach them and guide them. If they need motivation, talk to them, listen to them, empathise with them and understand them. If you give a co-worker what they need, when they need it, you will build yourself a fan following.
Be comfortable with yourself
What does this have to do with teamwork? Everything. Can you imagine yourself implementing the insights mentioned above without confidence or self-awareness?
All of us instinctively dislike pretentious people. This is because we know they are trying to be somebody else. The strong message that sends to us is that they don't really like who they actually are. We tend to pretend or try and be somebody else because we are scared, we want acceptance and we want to be liked. Unfortunately, pretending never works in the long run and it usually doesn't work in the short run either.
The millions of verbal and non-verbal signals that you send will reveal the truth anyway, irrespective of what you project. The only alternative is to really like yourself and be okay with who you are. People who win approval and acceptance are ironically, people who do not care much for it.
If you try to adopt the mindsets described in the article you will enhance the effectiveness of your role as a team-member. You will also become a valued resource and feel more comfortable in team settings.
'Teamwork' was probably one of the first words in management jargon to be overused and quickly become a cliche. And, like most cliched words and phrases, at the heart of the concept lies a powerful truth -- teamwork works and it works wonders.
After the Second World War, Japan was defeated and humiliated; two of their cities razed by powerful atom bombs. It was a country you probably wouldn't bet your money on in 1950. Yet, Japan rose from the ashes. In the decades following World War II, it became the third largest economy in the world. This, despite the fact that it does not have any great natural resources and is rocked by earthquakes and tsunamis.
Japanese companies went on to give tough competition to the tsars of automobile and electronics industry. The 'Made in Japan' symbol suddenly stood for best in quality. American consumers, forgetting the bitterness of Pearl Harbor and the Second World War, were choosing Japanese products over American ones.
This led to a spate of studies into why Japanese companies were outperforming their counterparts in the West. The studies, while identifying numerous socioeconomic and geopolitical factors, identified two intangible traits which gave an edge to the Japanese -- Quality and Teamwork.
Let us try and understand some basic attitudes that would help you become a more effective team member:
What's bigger -- your ego or the team goal?
It seems like an easy call, but many people find it amazingly tough. Teamwork, more than anything else, is a mindset. And it is extremely difficult for us to change our focus from ourselves as individuals to what the team is trying to do.
Most of the time, we are so focused on our own experience and feelings that we tend to ignore what the team is trying to do. If you can shift the limelight from yourself to the task at hand, your contribution and value in the team would increase tremendously. Ironically, when you shift your focus to the team's goal, your ego's needs are almost always automatically met.
The best way to get something...
As a team member, what do you want?
Do you want recognition? Give recognition.
Do you want help? Give help.
Depending upon your world view, you might have an opinion about how 'realistic' this insight really is. Here is a suggestion though, try it. When you 'fight' for recognition or trust or resources, you reaffirm to yourself that there isn't enough of it to go around, leading to a deficient experience.
When you give what you want freely, you tell yourself there is enough of it and manifest that in your team as well.
Your team members really want...
In an organisational context, team members usually have two needs. The first is a need for motivation. The second is the need for competence. Any team member would contribute their best if they want to contribute (motivation) and if they can contribute (competence).
For example: in a game of cricket, I will perform best if I can play the game well (competence) and if I am motivated to perform (motivation). A good team member would identify my immediate need and try to fulfill it. When you interact with other team members, identify what their main need is and try to fulfill it.
If they need competence, coach them, teach them and guide them. If they need motivation, talk to them, listen to them, empathise with them and understand them. If you give a co-worker what they need, when they need it, you will build yourself a fan following.
Be comfortable with yourself
What does this have to do with teamwork? Everything. Can you imagine yourself implementing the insights mentioned above without confidence or self-awareness?
All of us instinctively dislike pretentious people. This is because we know they are trying to be somebody else. The strong message that sends to us is that they don't really like who they actually are. We tend to pretend or try and be somebody else because we are scared, we want acceptance and we want to be liked. Unfortunately, pretending never works in the long run and it usually doesn't work in the short run either.
The millions of verbal and non-verbal signals that you send will reveal the truth anyway, irrespective of what you project. The only alternative is to really like yourself and be okay with who you are. People who win approval and acceptance are ironically, people who do not care much for it.
If you try to adopt the mindsets described in the article you will enhance the effectiveness of your role as a team-member. You will also become a valued resource and feel more comfortable in team settings.
8 ways to get noticed at work
All of us know businesses thrive on strong relationships, so we do all we can to impress our clients and external stakeholders.
In my earlier features -- 6 reasons to thank your clients and How to make clients your allies -- I highlighted the importance of client relationship management.
Most people, however, pay little or no attention to their relationships with peers, bosses and co-workers, though this might seem an obvious thing to do. Here's how you can become the 'Go to' person and get noticed at work.
Walk around for 15 minutes everyday
Offices are like mini-families. Most of us spend up to 11 hours a day in close proximity, sharing the same office space, facilities, break rooms, refrigerators, coffee pots, etc, with our work colleagues. Everyone shares responsibility for making the company work, run smoothly and stay profitable. Keep aside about 15 minutes a day to take a round, greet all the people you know with a smile and exchange pleasantries.
A smile and a warm handshake can wear off the stress most of us go through. Besides, making this effort adds to your desirability factor at work. And, even though it is considered a cliche, do remember smiling is contagious.
Give your colleagues importance
Tell a senior management executive how much you appreciate a certain colleague or subordinate. Do this in that person's presence and you would have won his/ her trust as well; besides, it will make your senior colleague respect you.
Be as specific as you can; for example: "Ram, I want you to know what a great job Vishal did at the presentation yesterday. We are all lucky to have him in the team." Do remember not to sound patronising when you do this.
If a veteran employee is retiring, organise a goodbye party; if someone is being promoted, set up a happy hour with your co-workers. Take initiative and others will take an instant liking to you.
See/ hear your name
Have you thought of contributing to your organisation's newsletter or Website or the journal that gets distributed within the organisation? Since company publications are frequently read by top executives, you'll be increasing your personal PR while establishing yourself as an expert in your chosen area. It's a great way to blow your own trumpet, albeit in a sophisticated fashion.
Join a committee or task force
Join a company-wide committee. Interacting with the same colleagues everyday won't increase your exposure; however, working on a committee with new people gives you an opportunity to make new contacts. It also gives you the opportunity to show your talent and skills to people who matter within the organisation.
Take up a leadership position within a task force and volunteer to lead a project. Behave like a leader and you will move into a leadership position sooner than you imagined.
Mediate a conflict
Workplace conflicts are most common and therein lies the opportunity to demonstrate your leadership and management skills. When done correctly, it can give you amazing results.
If you are trying to resolve a workplace conflict, do not get judgemental and take sides; rather, just serve as a facilitator and establish the ground rules for professional conduct at work. Keep resolution of the conflict in mind at all times; do not get involved or become emotional.
Are you losing your temper a work?
Offer a helping hand
Fill it up. If you've used the last piece of paper in a shared copier or printer, fill it up again even if it means going to the supply room to get another ream. After you've poured the coffee into your cup, take a minute to make another one for the next person in the queue.
Offer to mentor that new recruit at work or share a trade secret -- something that will help a colleague look good before his/ her boss. Often, these small gestures help you build relationships and also spread a good word around about you at the workplace.
Remember -- 'what goes around comes around'. The people you help will advocate for you when it matters the most.
Your best performance
There is nothing that will give you more exposure than getting the employee of the month or quarter award at the Rewards & Recognition event. Since these awards are often given by the top management, it gives you an opportunity to put your name before the key decision makers in your organisation. Remember, you won't get ahead with mediocre performance, regardless of how many other steps you implement.
Distractions at work- Stay focused
Stay updated
Read industry publications, reports and magazines, and be aware of market trends. Your knowledge will reflect when you communicate with colleagues and they would look up to you for advice and information. They will also talk positively about you with other members of the team. There is nothing better than third party publicity, as it establishes you as a thought leader within your organisation.
Read your way to success
Don't shy away from self promotion and PR at work. If done well, it can have a positive impact and help you get ahead at work.
In my earlier features -- 6 reasons to thank your clients and How to make clients your allies -- I highlighted the importance of client relationship management.
Most people, however, pay little or no attention to their relationships with peers, bosses and co-workers, though this might seem an obvious thing to do. Here's how you can become the 'Go to' person and get noticed at work.
Walk around for 15 minutes everyday
Offices are like mini-families. Most of us spend up to 11 hours a day in close proximity, sharing the same office space, facilities, break rooms, refrigerators, coffee pots, etc, with our work colleagues. Everyone shares responsibility for making the company work, run smoothly and stay profitable. Keep aside about 15 minutes a day to take a round, greet all the people you know with a smile and exchange pleasantries.
A smile and a warm handshake can wear off the stress most of us go through. Besides, making this effort adds to your desirability factor at work. And, even though it is considered a cliche, do remember smiling is contagious.
Give your colleagues importance
Tell a senior management executive how much you appreciate a certain colleague or subordinate. Do this in that person's presence and you would have won his/ her trust as well; besides, it will make your senior colleague respect you.
Be as specific as you can; for example: "Ram, I want you to know what a great job Vishal did at the presentation yesterday. We are all lucky to have him in the team." Do remember not to sound patronising when you do this.
If a veteran employee is retiring, organise a goodbye party; if someone is being promoted, set up a happy hour with your co-workers. Take initiative and others will take an instant liking to you.
See/ hear your name
Have you thought of contributing to your organisation's newsletter or Website or the journal that gets distributed within the organisation? Since company publications are frequently read by top executives, you'll be increasing your personal PR while establishing yourself as an expert in your chosen area. It's a great way to blow your own trumpet, albeit in a sophisticated fashion.
Join a committee or task force
Join a company-wide committee. Interacting with the same colleagues everyday won't increase your exposure; however, working on a committee with new people gives you an opportunity to make new contacts. It also gives you the opportunity to show your talent and skills to people who matter within the organisation.
Take up a leadership position within a task force and volunteer to lead a project. Behave like a leader and you will move into a leadership position sooner than you imagined.
Mediate a conflict
Workplace conflicts are most common and therein lies the opportunity to demonstrate your leadership and management skills. When done correctly, it can give you amazing results.
If you are trying to resolve a workplace conflict, do not get judgemental and take sides; rather, just serve as a facilitator and establish the ground rules for professional conduct at work. Keep resolution of the conflict in mind at all times; do not get involved or become emotional.
Are you losing your temper a work?
Offer a helping hand
Fill it up. If you've used the last piece of paper in a shared copier or printer, fill it up again even if it means going to the supply room to get another ream. After you've poured the coffee into your cup, take a minute to make another one for the next person in the queue.
Offer to mentor that new recruit at work or share a trade secret -- something that will help a colleague look good before his/ her boss. Often, these small gestures help you build relationships and also spread a good word around about you at the workplace.
Remember -- 'what goes around comes around'. The people you help will advocate for you when it matters the most.
Your best performance
There is nothing that will give you more exposure than getting the employee of the month or quarter award at the Rewards & Recognition event. Since these awards are often given by the top management, it gives you an opportunity to put your name before the key decision makers in your organisation. Remember, you won't get ahead with mediocre performance, regardless of how many other steps you implement.
Distractions at work- Stay focused
Stay updated
Read industry publications, reports and magazines, and be aware of market trends. Your knowledge will reflect when you communicate with colleagues and they would look up to you for advice and information. They will also talk positively about you with other members of the team. There is nothing better than third party publicity, as it establishes you as a thought leader within your organisation.
Read your way to success
Don't shy away from self promotion and PR at work. If done well, it can have a positive impact and help you get ahead at work.
Starting a business? Say goodbye to your ego
If you want to get into business, forget your ego.
If you don't love to make money, do not start a business.
Yes, a humble attitude and a love for money are very two important attributes of a successful entrepreneur -- according to Subroto Bagchi, author of The High Performance Entrepreneur-Golden Rules For Success In Today's World, and co-founder and chief operating officer of MindTree Consulting.
To know more, here's an excerpt:
Have a question you want to ask?
Entrepreneurship is about egolessness
Many people want to start companies in the prime of their careers, often after winning accolades as professional managers in large companies. That is great, but when you start your own company, you must know that you leave your past behind.That is easier said that done.
A persons's corporate success often comes from the power of the chair he sits on. He often underestimates how much he is an extension of that artefact. So, when that person steps out, the world repositions him without his knowing.People have a hard time coping with the attendant loss of identity. The day you step out of the collared existence of a blue-chip company, you are a mongrel. The first thing you have to do is to forage and run and duck and breed and forage some more.
In all this foraging, you will come up against strangers. Some will love you for reasons you will never be able to fathom. Some will be brutal with you.
I remember fondly a meeting with an irate customer. He demanded that I see him immediately and I took a late-night flight from New York all the way to California and showed up at the appointed time. I stood outside his glass door while he remained busy on the phone for a full forty-five minutes -- all the time knowing very well that I was standing there. When he finally showed me in, he did not apologize. The one-hour meeting was largely a one-sided rebuke. He did not offer me a glass of water or a coffee. After I came out, for a fleeting moment, I felt hurt. This man, in my past life would have had to take an appointment to see me --that is what my ego informed me. In the very next moment I realized that this was a set-up destiny to prune me.
I am sure when a rose bush is pruned, it does not like the experience. But without the pruning, it will not give great blooms. In the early years of setting up shop, one has to budget for a lot of pruning.
Sales people learn this early in their careers. Sometimes with reason and sometimes quite mindlessly, people keep them waiting, shut the door on them, or are otherwise rude. As you grow up, you learn to deal with such responses, one way being not to take things personally. Even service engineers learn to deal with rejection. But most people who come from other areas of expertise, specially senior people, become quite shaken when they face such experiences. The worst thing that you could do is return the volley. Sometimes, life is just testing your ability to weather storms. Even if you are entrepreneur material, possessing patience, resilience, empathy and politeness in very difficult situations, the sense of rejection can lead to occasional self-pity. That is the last thing you need in such situations, to even think, 'when I was a senior executive at my last organization, this man would not dare deal with me like this.' The 'senior executive' and your 'last organization' are past and best treated as fiction. This man is the current reality and is best treated as someone who may be holding the key to your future.
One day, very early in our existence, I went to General Motors (GM) with Sandeep Sabharwal, at that time a sales director in the US, to make a sales presentation. The fact of the matter is that GM's IT outsourcing runs into billions of dollars and every large IT services company camps inside and outside GM's Detroit office. The giant EDS, a business and technology solutions company, was born out of GM. And here was I, with less than 500 people and under $20 million in size, making a spirited pitch to explain why we were good enough for them. After a half-hour of involved presentation, I asked the gentleman from the purchase department what he thought of our proposal. He cleared his throat and said. 'You are so small that GM could chew you and spit you out before you knew it'. I laughed, but inside it hurt.
Sandeep and I stepped out, brought ourselves brownbag lunches and headed out to the next port of call. We were to meet someone at the Automobile Association of America (AAA). It took us some serious ego massages to be able to repeat the dog-and-pony show at the AAA, where too, in all probability, the prospect was ready to chew us up and throw us out. As we settled into the conference room with some effort to raise the spirit, I again started to explain who MindTree was and what it was about. To my surprise, the client just took over and told us that he knew about us and how high in his esteem we were as an organization. He had learnt all about us from his previous stint at Citibank, during which he had come to India as part of a delegation. He had met Ashok very briefly and was absolutely sold on MindTree. It was balm on a bruised ago after the rejection at GM. Sandeep and I told ourselves that our man at the AAA was the reality and the gentleman at GM was just another bad sales call.
Shortly after, I learnt that the gentleman at AAA had left his job. Another corporate reorganization! That part, as of today, we are still to do business with AAA. The gentleman at GM is probably still there somewhere but through some other opening, we actually do business with one of the GM companies. So, acceptance and rejection are equally transitory, result in equally unpredictable outcomes and must be treated with equanimity, without involving your ego in the results.
Finally, another point about egolessness. Till yesterday, you flew business class, had a secretary make appointments for you and checked in at the choicest hotels. When you start out on your own, for a long time you will have to forget all tat.
Investor money is meant to bring in customers, build and deliver products and services and generate cash before you start leading a life of such luxury. So, being economical with your expenses becomes critical to success. Six years into MindTree, none of us fly business class -- with the exception of Ashok. All of us pick hotels at $50 or less on priceline.com whenever we travel overseas.
While we do all that, our colleagues whom we left behind in earlier organization are entitled to great creature comforts. We know that postponed gratification is the essence of ownership. Hence, we do not compare ourselves with what we have left behind.
Entrepreneurs love money
If you do not love to make money, do not start a business. You will hear that many times over from me.
I meet a lot of people who love technology, so they want to start a company. I meet a lot of people who tell me that they have earned enough in their life and now want to set up a company to 'give something back'. None of these people will ever make great entrepreneurs. Sometimes, we think love for money is all about spending power. Some people have disdain for money because they associate money with being consumerist. In the hands of a creator of wealth, it is not always so. Some people use wealth to build more wealth. Some people like to make money so that they can change the state of things around them. Some enjoy the recognition and some just get a sense of high.
Some people have a deep need to build a legacy and see wealth as the way to do so. John D. Rockefeller's wealth created many legacies in many walks of life. The most memorable contribution made by him was the Rockefeller Foundation that started in 1913. In 2004, the foundation's assets stood at $2.4 billion, and in that year it disbursed grants, fellowships and programmatic funds worth $124 million. Jamsetji N. Tata, born in a family of clerics, seeded a business empire in 1859, just two years after India's first war of independence. In 2004 his Tata empire stood at $12.8 billion in size, and spanned 93 companies in seven businesses.
A lesser known fact is that 65.8 per cent of the empire is owned by charitable trusts. The Bill and Melinda Gartes Foundation is arguably the world's second richest charitable organization with assets that stood at $26.9 billion in 2006. In each of these instances, the founders were guided by a sense of legacy. It became the deep driving desire behind growing their enterprise so as to make their names remembered by posterity. Without affection for wealth, men like Rockefeller, Gates and Tata could not have created their legacy.
In the Hindu pantheon, wealth is granted by a goddess named Lakshmi. She is extremely jealous and possessive. She does not come to those who treat her as if she is incidental. Even if you manage to bring her in on some pretext, mythology has it that she flees at the smallest act of neglect. So, if someone says money is not my prime motivation, know that the goddess is listening.
If you don't love to make money, do not start a business.
Yes, a humble attitude and a love for money are very two important attributes of a successful entrepreneur -- according to Subroto Bagchi, author of The High Performance Entrepreneur-Golden Rules For Success In Today's World, and co-founder and chief operating officer of MindTree Consulting.
To know more, here's an excerpt:
Have a question you want to ask?
Entrepreneurship is about egolessness
Many people want to start companies in the prime of their careers, often after winning accolades as professional managers in large companies. That is great, but when you start your own company, you must know that you leave your past behind.That is easier said that done.
A persons's corporate success often comes from the power of the chair he sits on. He often underestimates how much he is an extension of that artefact. So, when that person steps out, the world repositions him without his knowing.People have a hard time coping with the attendant loss of identity. The day you step out of the collared existence of a blue-chip company, you are a mongrel. The first thing you have to do is to forage and run and duck and breed and forage some more.
In all this foraging, you will come up against strangers. Some will love you for reasons you will never be able to fathom. Some will be brutal with you.
I remember fondly a meeting with an irate customer. He demanded that I see him immediately and I took a late-night flight from New York all the way to California and showed up at the appointed time. I stood outside his glass door while he remained busy on the phone for a full forty-five minutes -- all the time knowing very well that I was standing there. When he finally showed me in, he did not apologize. The one-hour meeting was largely a one-sided rebuke. He did not offer me a glass of water or a coffee. After I came out, for a fleeting moment, I felt hurt. This man, in my past life would have had to take an appointment to see me --that is what my ego informed me. In the very next moment I realized that this was a set-up destiny to prune me.
I am sure when a rose bush is pruned, it does not like the experience. But without the pruning, it will not give great blooms. In the early years of setting up shop, one has to budget for a lot of pruning.
Sales people learn this early in their careers. Sometimes with reason and sometimes quite mindlessly, people keep them waiting, shut the door on them, or are otherwise rude. As you grow up, you learn to deal with such responses, one way being not to take things personally. Even service engineers learn to deal with rejection. But most people who come from other areas of expertise, specially senior people, become quite shaken when they face such experiences. The worst thing that you could do is return the volley. Sometimes, life is just testing your ability to weather storms. Even if you are entrepreneur material, possessing patience, resilience, empathy and politeness in very difficult situations, the sense of rejection can lead to occasional self-pity. That is the last thing you need in such situations, to even think, 'when I was a senior executive at my last organization, this man would not dare deal with me like this.' The 'senior executive' and your 'last organization' are past and best treated as fiction. This man is the current reality and is best treated as someone who may be holding the key to your future.
One day, very early in our existence, I went to General Motors (GM) with Sandeep Sabharwal, at that time a sales director in the US, to make a sales presentation. The fact of the matter is that GM's IT outsourcing runs into billions of dollars and every large IT services company camps inside and outside GM's Detroit office. The giant EDS, a business and technology solutions company, was born out of GM. And here was I, with less than 500 people and under $20 million in size, making a spirited pitch to explain why we were good enough for them. After a half-hour of involved presentation, I asked the gentleman from the purchase department what he thought of our proposal. He cleared his throat and said. 'You are so small that GM could chew you and spit you out before you knew it'. I laughed, but inside it hurt.
Sandeep and I stepped out, brought ourselves brownbag lunches and headed out to the next port of call. We were to meet someone at the Automobile Association of America (AAA). It took us some serious ego massages to be able to repeat the dog-and-pony show at the AAA, where too, in all probability, the prospect was ready to chew us up and throw us out. As we settled into the conference room with some effort to raise the spirit, I again started to explain who MindTree was and what it was about. To my surprise, the client just took over and told us that he knew about us and how high in his esteem we were as an organization. He had learnt all about us from his previous stint at Citibank, during which he had come to India as part of a delegation. He had met Ashok very briefly and was absolutely sold on MindTree. It was balm on a bruised ago after the rejection at GM. Sandeep and I told ourselves that our man at the AAA was the reality and the gentleman at GM was just another bad sales call.
Shortly after, I learnt that the gentleman at AAA had left his job. Another corporate reorganization! That part, as of today, we are still to do business with AAA. The gentleman at GM is probably still there somewhere but through some other opening, we actually do business with one of the GM companies. So, acceptance and rejection are equally transitory, result in equally unpredictable outcomes and must be treated with equanimity, without involving your ego in the results.
Finally, another point about egolessness. Till yesterday, you flew business class, had a secretary make appointments for you and checked in at the choicest hotels. When you start out on your own, for a long time you will have to forget all tat.
Investor money is meant to bring in customers, build and deliver products and services and generate cash before you start leading a life of such luxury. So, being economical with your expenses becomes critical to success. Six years into MindTree, none of us fly business class -- with the exception of Ashok. All of us pick hotels at $50 or less on priceline.com whenever we travel overseas.
While we do all that, our colleagues whom we left behind in earlier organization are entitled to great creature comforts. We know that postponed gratification is the essence of ownership. Hence, we do not compare ourselves with what we have left behind.
Entrepreneurs love money
If you do not love to make money, do not start a business. You will hear that many times over from me.
I meet a lot of people who love technology, so they want to start a company. I meet a lot of people who tell me that they have earned enough in their life and now want to set up a company to 'give something back'. None of these people will ever make great entrepreneurs. Sometimes, we think love for money is all about spending power. Some people have disdain for money because they associate money with being consumerist. In the hands of a creator of wealth, it is not always so. Some people use wealth to build more wealth. Some people like to make money so that they can change the state of things around them. Some enjoy the recognition and some just get a sense of high.
Some people have a deep need to build a legacy and see wealth as the way to do so. John D. Rockefeller's wealth created many legacies in many walks of life. The most memorable contribution made by him was the Rockefeller Foundation that started in 1913. In 2004, the foundation's assets stood at $2.4 billion, and in that year it disbursed grants, fellowships and programmatic funds worth $124 million. Jamsetji N. Tata, born in a family of clerics, seeded a business empire in 1859, just two years after India's first war of independence. In 2004 his Tata empire stood at $12.8 billion in size, and spanned 93 companies in seven businesses.
A lesser known fact is that 65.8 per cent of the empire is owned by charitable trusts. The Bill and Melinda Gartes Foundation is arguably the world's second richest charitable organization with assets that stood at $26.9 billion in 2006. In each of these instances, the founders were guided by a sense of legacy. It became the deep driving desire behind growing their enterprise so as to make their names remembered by posterity. Without affection for wealth, men like Rockefeller, Gates and Tata could not have created their legacy.
In the Hindu pantheon, wealth is granted by a goddess named Lakshmi. She is extremely jealous and possessive. She does not come to those who treat her as if she is incidental. Even if you manage to bring her in on some pretext, mythology has it that she flees at the smallest act of neglect. So, if someone says money is not my prime motivation, know that the goddess is listening.
Entrepreneurship = 60 hours of work
What makes a great entrepreneur?
Subroto Bagchi, co-founder and chief operating officer of MindTree Consulting tries to answer this question in his book The High Performance Entrepreneur-Golden Rules For Success In Today's World.
He writes: 'Entrepreneurship requires the ability to read patterns on the wall, flexibility and an uncanny ability to seize the moment.' He also mentions that the minimum number of hours an entrepreneur must put in, a week, is 60 hours. In reality this figure is closer to 70.
An excerpt:
Have a question you want to ask?
Entrepreneurs work hard and are extremely goal oriented How do we quantify hard work? When I was working at Wipro, my last assignment was to work for chairman Azim Premji as corporate vice president, mission: quality. This was preceded by three other jobs in the organization. In the course of each, I had made a mark. I always used to think that I worked hard.
So, when I was being considered for the position, Premji asked me, how many hours a week do you put in? Not a superfluous question, this. The man measures and tracks the number of hours he works every week. He does not expect everyone in the organization to work as hard as himself. But he has figured out the minimum number of hours a person must be comfortable working in order to be part of his team. That number is a minimum of 60 hours a week, in reality closer to 70. Premji average 80 hours a week. That is hard work. But just so we know, Premji never asks someone to change holiday plans, once these have been approved, never recalls someone on vacation.
Ashok Soota, chairman and managing director of MindTree, works as hard. He measures the number of days he is on travel every year. That number, when he was 62 was an average of 140 days a year. It does not mean that he is a workaholic with no life outside of work. He settles his vacation dates at the beginning of the year and these are non-negotiable. At least one vacation in the year involves a mountain trek or a snorkeling trip during which we do not contact him. Ashok's self-discipline and hard work rub off on every senior person in the organization. At the next level, a 70-hour workweek and an average 140 days of travel has been the way for all of us since MindTree was born.
Along with hard work, comes the ability to work unsupervised. It is a critical requirement of entrepreneurship. As a paid professional, often someone can blame the system for not providing either the direction or the resources. As an entrepreneur, you no longer have that latitude. You have to work hard, very hard.
That is why venture capitalists have coined the term 'sweat equity', the ownership that comes by the sweat of your brows.
Entrepreneurs are flexible, opportunistic and recognize the power of 'emergence'
I love this story about IBM and its founder Thomas Watson, Sr. that I heard Peter Drucker narrate. It was 1934 or '35. IBM had built the first accounting machines for banks but in the Depression years, no bank was buying anything. IBM was on the brink of bankruptcy. Watson's wife forced him to accompany her to a social event where he was seated next to a middle-aged lady.
While talking with her, Watson described to her the machine IBM had built. It turned out that the lady was in-charge of the library system in New York City. She told Watson that they were in complete disarray, unable to manage their books, and told him that she would need half a dozen of these! Next day, he sold her five of the machines.
Until that moment, Watson had never thought of his computing devices as machines for tracking books.
That one sale pulled IBM from the brink of bankruptcy.
Had it not been for Watson's capability to go with the emergent flow of events -- moving from accounting machines to the recognition that he could make general purpose computers -- IBM would not be what it is today. We all know that the essence of entrepreneurial ability is about building a future and living in it. Sometimes, it is about 'willing' a course for the enterprise. Yet, things do not always go the way you plan. Destiny tests you all the time, plays pranks and shows tiny openings in a moss-covered brick wall behind which often a whole new world awaits.
When we started MindTree and were a no-name entity in the US, a chance meeting took place with a man called Larry Kinder who had just moved in as CIO of Avis. We won an assignment to build consensus between two groups of Avis managers on the future of their on-line reservation system. A team from MindTree, led by Erik Mann, who is one of our best consultants, delivered well. Consequently, we moved on to win the technical design for re-architecting Avis.Com. Then we built the on-line reservation system. Today, the system handles $1 billion worth of transactions at Avis. In the course of following up on that small opening at Avis, we saw three CIOs come and go and then came a CEO who even wanted us out of the door. We survived all those changes and focused on building value, one day at a time.
Many analysts ask me how we won Avis. One morning Joe King -- an early member of the MindTree team and currently a senior vice president of our US operations -- called Larry Kinder's office at 7 in the morning. That is called the 'golden hour'. It is a direct marketer's dream time. The golden hour is when a senior executive has come in but his secretary has not -- someone who is paid to block unwanted callers. Larry picked up the phone that day, listened to Joe's pitch and agreed to see us. I am sure he was used to a hundred such unsolicited calls-this was the heyday of the Internet boom. I often ask myself, what would have happened if Larry had not been in office that day? Why did he have to pay attention to Joe? What if he had dismissed that one call?
Providence is very powerful in our journeys and entrepreneurs must take room for her. It is not always what you bring to the table. Sometimes, it is an unexplainable turn of events that changes your course. From a small assignment for Larry in 1999, in 2006 MindTree did $15 million worth of business for the whole of the Cendant Group that owns Avis and learnt enough about the travel industry to start a vertical focused on it.
After Larry Kinder moved to a larger role a Cendant, due to turbulence in the organization, things became difficult for us. At the Avis end, a turnaround CIO named Raj Rawal took over. As it often happens in times of corporate transition, Raj had received mixed messages about our capability, role and contributions. My first meeting with him was not in happy circumstances. Yet, the moment I met Raj something about him told me that I could bet everything for this man. We hit it off and under his leadership, the reorganization and our role in it got sorted out. Our relationship grew. In time, Raj moved on and eventually took over as CIO at Burger King. As he settled into his new job, the phone rang at my desk.
In 1999, we had started the company with the vision to be focused on two businesses: IT consulting and software services, and R&D services. The former was for building Internet-based applications and on the R&D side, we wanted to work on providing solutions in the telecom domain. In just about a year, there was a dotcom bust and the telecom domain just about vanished.
On the IT services side, we had to rapidly move into other areas like Supply Chain, Data-warehousing, Mainframe-based Application Management Services (AMS) and Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP). None of these words existed in the original business plan we had written. On the R&D side, we created new verticals like Semiconductors, Appliances, Industrial Automation and Avionics, Storage Technologies and Computing Platforms. Again, these were things we never thought we would dabble in. All that had to be done without losing the original position of strength, all that had to be done in real time and by taking all our people along with us.
Nine out of ten companies born at the same thing as us, anywhere in the world, do not exist today. Entrepreneurship requires the ability to read patterns on the wall, flexibility and an uncanny ability to seize the moment.
Subroto Bagchi, co-founder and chief operating officer of MindTree Consulting tries to answer this question in his book The High Performance Entrepreneur-Golden Rules For Success In Today's World.
He writes: 'Entrepreneurship requires the ability to read patterns on the wall, flexibility and an uncanny ability to seize the moment.' He also mentions that the minimum number of hours an entrepreneur must put in, a week, is 60 hours. In reality this figure is closer to 70.
An excerpt:
Have a question you want to ask?
Entrepreneurs work hard and are extremely goal oriented How do we quantify hard work? When I was working at Wipro, my last assignment was to work for chairman Azim Premji as corporate vice president, mission: quality. This was preceded by three other jobs in the organization. In the course of each, I had made a mark. I always used to think that I worked hard.
So, when I was being considered for the position, Premji asked me, how many hours a week do you put in? Not a superfluous question, this. The man measures and tracks the number of hours he works every week. He does not expect everyone in the organization to work as hard as himself. But he has figured out the minimum number of hours a person must be comfortable working in order to be part of his team. That number is a minimum of 60 hours a week, in reality closer to 70. Premji average 80 hours a week. That is hard work. But just so we know, Premji never asks someone to change holiday plans, once these have been approved, never recalls someone on vacation.
Ashok Soota, chairman and managing director of MindTree, works as hard. He measures the number of days he is on travel every year. That number, when he was 62 was an average of 140 days a year. It does not mean that he is a workaholic with no life outside of work. He settles his vacation dates at the beginning of the year and these are non-negotiable. At least one vacation in the year involves a mountain trek or a snorkeling trip during which we do not contact him. Ashok's self-discipline and hard work rub off on every senior person in the organization. At the next level, a 70-hour workweek and an average 140 days of travel has been the way for all of us since MindTree was born.
Along with hard work, comes the ability to work unsupervised. It is a critical requirement of entrepreneurship. As a paid professional, often someone can blame the system for not providing either the direction or the resources. As an entrepreneur, you no longer have that latitude. You have to work hard, very hard.
That is why venture capitalists have coined the term 'sweat equity', the ownership that comes by the sweat of your brows.
Entrepreneurs are flexible, opportunistic and recognize the power of 'emergence'
I love this story about IBM and its founder Thomas Watson, Sr. that I heard Peter Drucker narrate. It was 1934 or '35. IBM had built the first accounting machines for banks but in the Depression years, no bank was buying anything. IBM was on the brink of bankruptcy. Watson's wife forced him to accompany her to a social event where he was seated next to a middle-aged lady.
While talking with her, Watson described to her the machine IBM had built. It turned out that the lady was in-charge of the library system in New York City. She told Watson that they were in complete disarray, unable to manage their books, and told him that she would need half a dozen of these! Next day, he sold her five of the machines.
Until that moment, Watson had never thought of his computing devices as machines for tracking books.
That one sale pulled IBM from the brink of bankruptcy.
Had it not been for Watson's capability to go with the emergent flow of events -- moving from accounting machines to the recognition that he could make general purpose computers -- IBM would not be what it is today. We all know that the essence of entrepreneurial ability is about building a future and living in it. Sometimes, it is about 'willing' a course for the enterprise. Yet, things do not always go the way you plan. Destiny tests you all the time, plays pranks and shows tiny openings in a moss-covered brick wall behind which often a whole new world awaits.
When we started MindTree and were a no-name entity in the US, a chance meeting took place with a man called Larry Kinder who had just moved in as CIO of Avis. We won an assignment to build consensus between two groups of Avis managers on the future of their on-line reservation system. A team from MindTree, led by Erik Mann, who is one of our best consultants, delivered well. Consequently, we moved on to win the technical design for re-architecting Avis.Com. Then we built the on-line reservation system. Today, the system handles $1 billion worth of transactions at Avis. In the course of following up on that small opening at Avis, we saw three CIOs come and go and then came a CEO who even wanted us out of the door. We survived all those changes and focused on building value, one day at a time.
Many analysts ask me how we won Avis. One morning Joe King -- an early member of the MindTree team and currently a senior vice president of our US operations -- called Larry Kinder's office at 7 in the morning. That is called the 'golden hour'. It is a direct marketer's dream time. The golden hour is when a senior executive has come in but his secretary has not -- someone who is paid to block unwanted callers. Larry picked up the phone that day, listened to Joe's pitch and agreed to see us. I am sure he was used to a hundred such unsolicited calls-this was the heyday of the Internet boom. I often ask myself, what would have happened if Larry had not been in office that day? Why did he have to pay attention to Joe? What if he had dismissed that one call?
Providence is very powerful in our journeys and entrepreneurs must take room for her. It is not always what you bring to the table. Sometimes, it is an unexplainable turn of events that changes your course. From a small assignment for Larry in 1999, in 2006 MindTree did $15 million worth of business for the whole of the Cendant Group that owns Avis and learnt enough about the travel industry to start a vertical focused on it.
After Larry Kinder moved to a larger role a Cendant, due to turbulence in the organization, things became difficult for us. At the Avis end, a turnaround CIO named Raj Rawal took over. As it often happens in times of corporate transition, Raj had received mixed messages about our capability, role and contributions. My first meeting with him was not in happy circumstances. Yet, the moment I met Raj something about him told me that I could bet everything for this man. We hit it off and under his leadership, the reorganization and our role in it got sorted out. Our relationship grew. In time, Raj moved on and eventually took over as CIO at Burger King. As he settled into his new job, the phone rang at my desk.
In 1999, we had started the company with the vision to be focused on two businesses: IT consulting and software services, and R&D services. The former was for building Internet-based applications and on the R&D side, we wanted to work on providing solutions in the telecom domain. In just about a year, there was a dotcom bust and the telecom domain just about vanished.
On the IT services side, we had to rapidly move into other areas like Supply Chain, Data-warehousing, Mainframe-based Application Management Services (AMS) and Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP). None of these words existed in the original business plan we had written. On the R&D side, we created new verticals like Semiconductors, Appliances, Industrial Automation and Avionics, Storage Technologies and Computing Platforms. Again, these were things we never thought we would dabble in. All that had to be done without losing the original position of strength, all that had to be done in real time and by taking all our people along with us.
Nine out of ten companies born at the same thing as us, anywhere in the world, do not exist today. Entrepreneurship requires the ability to read patterns on the wall, flexibility and an uncanny ability to seize the moment.
Got what it takes to be an entrepreneur?
Think you have it in you to become a successful entrepreneur?
According to Subroto Bagchi, co-founder and chief operating officer of MindTree Consulting, self-confidence is the most important attribute that a person must have to become a successful entrepreneur.
He writes in his book The High Performance Entrepreneur: Golden Rules For Success In Today's World: 'You cannot show me a person who does not believe in herself and yet is a successful entrepreneur. '
The book provides a peek into the personal and team charcateristics that result in high-performance entrepreneurship.
An excerpt:
Have a question you want to ask?
It is interesting that before getting down to writing this book, the subject never occurred to me. Is there something like an entrepreneurial profile? I have not come across any significant body of work that concisely proposes the subject, not have I seen a psychometric test that could tell us whether any of us is entrepreneur material or not. Is there something in common between GE's Thomas Alva Edison, Microsoft's Bill Gates, the Tata's Jamsetji Tata, Dell's Michael Dell, Wal-Mart's Sam Walton and Sony's Akio Morita? When we look at their lives closely, we do see some important traits. Anyone wanting to venture out should assess whether or not of characteristics without which venturing out may not be advisable. Yet, I must caution, there are exceptions to every rule. But, exceptions they are.
What every entrepreneur MUST know
Self-confidence: It is the # 1 attribute
The foremost attribute of people who become entrepreneurs is self-confidence. I would even argue that there are no exception to this rule. You cannot show me a person who does not believe in herself and yet is a successful entrepreneur. However small may be the size of the endeavour, self-confidence is the most critical ingredient of success. What is self-confidence? It is difficult to define it, but most people will be able to judge whether they have it by doing a little introspection.
It is something that either you have or do not, at a given point in time. The reason I am using the qualifier is that it is possible to build self-confidence and it is equally possible to lose it due to circumstances.However, if at the time of starting out on your own you do not have a sustained phase of self-confidence, I would advise against venturing out. Wait for the right time.
Self-confidence can come from personal experience. As a little boy of six, I had gone to visit my maternal uncle. It was a time of great festivity in Berhampur, in West Bengal, where they lived. It was time for Durga Puja and in every locality, the idol of Durga was instated. We spent most of our time hanging around the community idol and there I found an older boy selling balloons. For some reason, he offered me apprenticeship. Without knowing what I was getting into, I accepted. To my delight, I found people quite willing to buy from me. It was quite easy and I made quite a bit of money. But when it was time to return home, I became worried. How would I explain the source of my income? What if my mother got angry with me for selling balloons? For a six-year-old who has done something without prior permission, this can be a huge issue. I had liked the whole experience of selling someone a balloon and having a repeat customer when a mother or a sister of a kid returned for more was exhilarating.
Selling balloons is a value-added activity. You buy the balloons, you breathe air into them, you carry them in a lot and you talk price with real customers. I do not quite remember how I handled the issue at home, but the next day, I was back in business.
From then on when I look back at my life, I see a series of things that told me. I could do it. I would sign up for sports and debating and theatre and music and any other contest going on. It baffled me when I was thrown out of an audition for the school's annual day celebrations. I was so musically deaf that I did not know why they were rejecting me. So what? I had no shame in trying one more time in another school the next year.
By the time I was thirteen, my family had moved to another town. For some reason, I did not like the school there. I convinced everyone at home that I needed to go back to my old school. Leaving them behind, I headed back. My father, who had retired by then, finally agreed to come and stay with me till I completed the high school term. I was setting my directions --not someone else.
As a child, I was asthmatic, but I did not let that come in the way of physical activity. At eighteen, I got selected for parachute jumping as a cadet in the National Cadet Corps and trained with the Indian Army for two months. During the rigorous training, there were times I thought I would die. I never told anyone that I was asthmatic. They would not have selected me if I had. But the daily regimen of army exercise, their generous diet and the eventual five jumps cured my asthma.
When I came back, I felt I had become an adult and needed a sweetheart. So, at nineteen, I found her-all of sixteen years --got her to agree to be my beloved and promptly notified everyone at home. In India of 1975, you did such things at your own risk.
In 1976, I graduated from college and joined the local university for my Masters. Sixty days through the course, I decided that it was a waste of time. Moreover, I did not want to be a burden on my two brothers, who were supporting retired parents, another brother and me. So, I talked to my professor, left college and took up the job of a clerk in a government office. Only after getting my appointment letter did I notify my family that I had given up college.
A year after, I found my first real job, as a management trainee in DCM, at that time India's seventh largest business house. Once I got there, I worked my way up. During all this and at all of twenty-two, I figured out that I had to marry my sweetheart, and did so. In the process, I irked my in-laws and also jumped the queue of one immediate elder brother and a dozen older cousins. Not the practice in my generation. But who cared?
There is a reason why I am sharing these personal details with my readers. Looking back, these incidents at different points in time till me the level of my own self-confidence.If you looked back at your life, you would be able to see many small things, significant nonetheless, that hold the key. Strung together, they show your level of self-confidence.
To determine your entrepreneurial streak, ask yourself if you tried out unusual things, and whether you enjoyed them.
Did you take the important decisions in your life or did someone else invariably take them for you?
Did you enjoy the process, irrespective of the outcome?
How well did you handle small adversities and who took decisions for you at that time?
Did you ever feel helpless?
Did you get out of the situation by taking your own decisions or did you allow the situation to determine the course?
Can you make friends with a stranger?
Do you know your physical and mental limitations? Do you think you can work to overcome them?
Do you feel comfortable in talking about yourself?
Do you feel comfortable asking others for help?
Does the act of buying and selling excite you?
Do you like meeting people?
Do you see things to completion?
Entrepreneurs value their sense of freedom, but they are also very disciplined.
First of all, a clarification. Most successful career managers value their sense of freedom. In fact, organizations that recognize this and are willing to pay the price for it, breed a very special kind of manager, one who is like an entrepreneur in his area of operation.
All my life, both on the personal and the professional fronts, I have enjoyed being free to set my goals and create and work towards my own work plan and take my own decisions I like taking instructions from more competent people and my customers. But I do not like someone telling me how to go about doing my work. I work best when I am given what is called a `porous boundary'. When I look back at all the jobs that I did well, I see a common thread. Each one allowed me an enormous amount of freedom to do what I wanted to do.
This, however, comes with great responsibility. One is responsible for ensuring that one's stakeholders are delivered a beneficial outcome, if not always, at least most of the time. One is responsible, particularly, for customers and employees. Freedom is not lack of answerability. Many people mistake freedom with the absence of accountability. Freedom to me is the ability to explore and settle options the way I think is suitable and the ability to work within porous boundaries.
Sometimes people think that freedom for a business person is about deciding for yourself when to come and go, who to serve or not, how much to pay yourself, how much to able to spend on entertainment, choosing the hotel you want to stay at or accounting for a personal trip as official.None of these are about freedom. If you ask people who know, they will tell you that such attributes ate severely looked down upon by successful entrepreneurs.
A good entrepreneur is a highly disciplined person.
Freedom to such an individual is an inner need for space in which the person can create greater value without interference. That process of creating greater value often involves risks, of trying creative ideas to stay ahead. He does not enjoy someone pulling him from behind or asking for a progress report by breathing down his neck every now and then.
This does not mean entrepreneurs are not accountable.
At MindTree, people routinely question us on policies, issues and directions. Every month, Ashok Soota, chairman of the company, sends out an electronic update called Snapshots. Every quarter, we meet all MindTree Minds for what is known as 'What's on your mind' and people put us on the mat. Every quarter, the board reviews and questions us-five of the nine members on the board are external directors who pore over an average 100 pages of reports and ask detailed and often uncomfortable questions on strategy and direction. In addition to all this, we are answerable to the government agencies and financial institutions of every country in which we operate. And, of course, we are answerable to the analysts who track us, press persons who seek our views and write about us, industry associations whose members we are. We are answerable for high-value purchases to even our suppliers and last but not the least, in a very real sense, we are answerable to our customers.
So, what is left? And what is this talk about freedom?
Freedom to an entrepreneur is the ability to choose a line of business and set goals consistent with stakeholder ambitions. Freedom is the ability to write and revise a business plan. Freedom is the ability to make a decision on a given product and service strategy. Freedom is about the ability to choose from whom you want to take money, on what terms. Freedom is the ability to decide whom you want to hire for what job. Freedom is the ability to settle policy that will govern the internal working of the organization. Freedom is the ability to say that the debate rests here and the decision begins.
Freedom is also about reaping the risks and the rewards that come from all this, but within the articulated guidelines of a business.
According to Subroto Bagchi, co-founder and chief operating officer of MindTree Consulting, self-confidence is the most important attribute that a person must have to become a successful entrepreneur.
He writes in his book The High Performance Entrepreneur: Golden Rules For Success In Today's World: 'You cannot show me a person who does not believe in herself and yet is a successful entrepreneur. '
The book provides a peek into the personal and team charcateristics that result in high-performance entrepreneurship.
An excerpt:
Have a question you want to ask?
It is interesting that before getting down to writing this book, the subject never occurred to me. Is there something like an entrepreneurial profile? I have not come across any significant body of work that concisely proposes the subject, not have I seen a psychometric test that could tell us whether any of us is entrepreneur material or not. Is there something in common between GE's Thomas Alva Edison, Microsoft's Bill Gates, the Tata's Jamsetji Tata, Dell's Michael Dell, Wal-Mart's Sam Walton and Sony's Akio Morita? When we look at their lives closely, we do see some important traits. Anyone wanting to venture out should assess whether or not of characteristics without which venturing out may not be advisable. Yet, I must caution, there are exceptions to every rule. But, exceptions they are.
What every entrepreneur MUST know
Self-confidence: It is the # 1 attribute
The foremost attribute of people who become entrepreneurs is self-confidence. I would even argue that there are no exception to this rule. You cannot show me a person who does not believe in herself and yet is a successful entrepreneur. However small may be the size of the endeavour, self-confidence is the most critical ingredient of success. What is self-confidence? It is difficult to define it, but most people will be able to judge whether they have it by doing a little introspection.
It is something that either you have or do not, at a given point in time. The reason I am using the qualifier is that it is possible to build self-confidence and it is equally possible to lose it due to circumstances.However, if at the time of starting out on your own you do not have a sustained phase of self-confidence, I would advise against venturing out. Wait for the right time.
Self-confidence can come from personal experience. As a little boy of six, I had gone to visit my maternal uncle. It was a time of great festivity in Berhampur, in West Bengal, where they lived. It was time for Durga Puja and in every locality, the idol of Durga was instated. We spent most of our time hanging around the community idol and there I found an older boy selling balloons. For some reason, he offered me apprenticeship. Without knowing what I was getting into, I accepted. To my delight, I found people quite willing to buy from me. It was quite easy and I made quite a bit of money. But when it was time to return home, I became worried. How would I explain the source of my income? What if my mother got angry with me for selling balloons? For a six-year-old who has done something without prior permission, this can be a huge issue. I had liked the whole experience of selling someone a balloon and having a repeat customer when a mother or a sister of a kid returned for more was exhilarating.
Selling balloons is a value-added activity. You buy the balloons, you breathe air into them, you carry them in a lot and you talk price with real customers. I do not quite remember how I handled the issue at home, but the next day, I was back in business.
From then on when I look back at my life, I see a series of things that told me. I could do it. I would sign up for sports and debating and theatre and music and any other contest going on. It baffled me when I was thrown out of an audition for the school's annual day celebrations. I was so musically deaf that I did not know why they were rejecting me. So what? I had no shame in trying one more time in another school the next year.
By the time I was thirteen, my family had moved to another town. For some reason, I did not like the school there. I convinced everyone at home that I needed to go back to my old school. Leaving them behind, I headed back. My father, who had retired by then, finally agreed to come and stay with me till I completed the high school term. I was setting my directions --not someone else.
As a child, I was asthmatic, but I did not let that come in the way of physical activity. At eighteen, I got selected for parachute jumping as a cadet in the National Cadet Corps and trained with the Indian Army for two months. During the rigorous training, there were times I thought I would die. I never told anyone that I was asthmatic. They would not have selected me if I had. But the daily regimen of army exercise, their generous diet and the eventual five jumps cured my asthma.
When I came back, I felt I had become an adult and needed a sweetheart. So, at nineteen, I found her-all of sixteen years --got her to agree to be my beloved and promptly notified everyone at home. In India of 1975, you did such things at your own risk.
In 1976, I graduated from college and joined the local university for my Masters. Sixty days through the course, I decided that it was a waste of time. Moreover, I did not want to be a burden on my two brothers, who were supporting retired parents, another brother and me. So, I talked to my professor, left college and took up the job of a clerk in a government office. Only after getting my appointment letter did I notify my family that I had given up college.
A year after, I found my first real job, as a management trainee in DCM, at that time India's seventh largest business house. Once I got there, I worked my way up. During all this and at all of twenty-two, I figured out that I had to marry my sweetheart, and did so. In the process, I irked my in-laws and also jumped the queue of one immediate elder brother and a dozen older cousins. Not the practice in my generation. But who cared?
There is a reason why I am sharing these personal details with my readers. Looking back, these incidents at different points in time till me the level of my own self-confidence.If you looked back at your life, you would be able to see many small things, significant nonetheless, that hold the key. Strung together, they show your level of self-confidence.
To determine your entrepreneurial streak, ask yourself if you tried out unusual things, and whether you enjoyed them.
Did you take the important decisions in your life or did someone else invariably take them for you?
Did you enjoy the process, irrespective of the outcome?
How well did you handle small adversities and who took decisions for you at that time?
Did you ever feel helpless?
Did you get out of the situation by taking your own decisions or did you allow the situation to determine the course?
Can you make friends with a stranger?
Do you know your physical and mental limitations? Do you think you can work to overcome them?
Do you feel comfortable in talking about yourself?
Do you feel comfortable asking others for help?
Does the act of buying and selling excite you?
Do you like meeting people?
Do you see things to completion?
Entrepreneurs value their sense of freedom, but they are also very disciplined.
First of all, a clarification. Most successful career managers value their sense of freedom. In fact, organizations that recognize this and are willing to pay the price for it, breed a very special kind of manager, one who is like an entrepreneur in his area of operation.
All my life, both on the personal and the professional fronts, I have enjoyed being free to set my goals and create and work towards my own work plan and take my own decisions I like taking instructions from more competent people and my customers. But I do not like someone telling me how to go about doing my work. I work best when I am given what is called a `porous boundary'. When I look back at all the jobs that I did well, I see a common thread. Each one allowed me an enormous amount of freedom to do what I wanted to do.
This, however, comes with great responsibility. One is responsible for ensuring that one's stakeholders are delivered a beneficial outcome, if not always, at least most of the time. One is responsible, particularly, for customers and employees. Freedom is not lack of answerability. Many people mistake freedom with the absence of accountability. Freedom to me is the ability to explore and settle options the way I think is suitable and the ability to work within porous boundaries.
Sometimes people think that freedom for a business person is about deciding for yourself when to come and go, who to serve or not, how much to pay yourself, how much to able to spend on entertainment, choosing the hotel you want to stay at or accounting for a personal trip as official.None of these are about freedom. If you ask people who know, they will tell you that such attributes ate severely looked down upon by successful entrepreneurs.
A good entrepreneur is a highly disciplined person.
Freedom to such an individual is an inner need for space in which the person can create greater value without interference. That process of creating greater value often involves risks, of trying creative ideas to stay ahead. He does not enjoy someone pulling him from behind or asking for a progress report by breathing down his neck every now and then.
This does not mean entrepreneurs are not accountable.
At MindTree, people routinely question us on policies, issues and directions. Every month, Ashok Soota, chairman of the company, sends out an electronic update called Snapshots. Every quarter, we meet all MindTree Minds for what is known as 'What's on your mind' and people put us on the mat. Every quarter, the board reviews and questions us-five of the nine members on the board are external directors who pore over an average 100 pages of reports and ask detailed and often uncomfortable questions on strategy and direction. In addition to all this, we are answerable to the government agencies and financial institutions of every country in which we operate. And, of course, we are answerable to the analysts who track us, press persons who seek our views and write about us, industry associations whose members we are. We are answerable for high-value purchases to even our suppliers and last but not the least, in a very real sense, we are answerable to our customers.
So, what is left? And what is this talk about freedom?
Freedom to an entrepreneur is the ability to choose a line of business and set goals consistent with stakeholder ambitions. Freedom is the ability to write and revise a business plan. Freedom is the ability to make a decision on a given product and service strategy. Freedom is about the ability to choose from whom you want to take money, on what terms. Freedom is the ability to decide whom you want to hire for what job. Freedom is the ability to settle policy that will govern the internal working of the organization. Freedom is the ability to say that the debate rests here and the decision begins.
Freedom is also about reaping the risks and the rewards that come from all this, but within the articulated guidelines of a business.
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