Power M

By and large, teams reflect their manager is what people say... If the team does well, it's all praises or the other way. But the picture is far beyond larger on how a group of different individuals come together to work, collaborate, achieve, celebrate and contribute to the overall team is unnoticed.

I have been blessed to be mentored, supported, and uplifted by managers who have had more than just a conventional lens of looking at Work, Culture, and Performance. Trust me, it's interesting to feel the difference between working under such managers compared to conventional by the book ones. It makes you feel different as an individual and helps you grown as a professional. The mantra is simple, the numbers and all the other basics in one's KRA are for the salary that gets credited to you every month, for every other growth aspect what are you doing, and most importantly "How" you are doing. The "HOW" has more weightage than everything else put together.

"My job is not to be easy on people. My job is to take these great people we have and to push them and make them even better." --Steve Jobs

I have always been inclined towards reading and recording one's behavior including my own as a professional. What I feel are some of the most important elements for any professional to be better, some of my observations on some set criteria:

• In the first place itself, it is your own performance – your knowledge, skills, attitudes, values, and experience that will eventually decide your effectiveness in the job.
• For work effectiveness, it is important that there is a fine match between your skills and the demands of the job as it affects your potential effectiveness.
• The people you work with exert a major influence on how effective you can be as a professional.
• Finally, the organization where one works also determines how effective you can be. Organizational structure, your position, authority, and your responsibilities impose big constraints on what you are effectively able to achieve.

This is my bit of what I feel an individual needs to have or goes through for gettings the basics right. Now, in the last few months specifically, I have been questioned on "How" have you done what you have done, which in turn forces me to look back on some of the small actions that our leaders have been trying to incorporate and build in the last year or so.

"Design is not just what it looks like and feels like. Design is how it works." - Steve Jobs

• Contextualizing the team contribution - As individuals, we understand our role within the organization, so contextualizing the team’s contribution within the company’s overall aims and prospects is something leaders do in order to keep it relevant.
• Clearly defining team goals - We all look at ourselves and see our growth, but when you operate in a team that knows exactly what the goals are so that key steps towards achieving these are followed and processes developed. Taking the lead in defining these goals and helping the team to understand their role in achieving the right outcomes underpins effective leadership and management.
• Laying ground rules for teamwork - Once goals are in place, the ground rules for efficiency and success can be outlined. Depending on your sector, these may include a focus on areas such as work style, how deadlines are to be monitored and managed.
• Communicating effectively - The manager communicates information to the team, whilst also facilitating good communication within and between teams. Of course, effective communication also includes listening, so managing meetings efficiently so that contributions are listened to and considered also helps to build effective teams and team-working processes.
• Delegating and problem-solving - Along with playing to the team’s strengths, ensure that delegation is used efficiently to facilitate what’s needed in the current phase of work. When challenges arise, encourage the problem solvers, inspire the creatives, but don’t fall into same-old patterns of delegation: give team members the chance to experience other roles, and develop their competencies and contributions within the team.
• Accentuating the positives - When an individual within the team is praised, it is not for others to look down but to look up and see what the Manager is trying to promote is the best practice and some of the low-hanging fruits one can pick and adopt.

Many Managers or professionals will think about what is new in this, this is something we also do or experience. It is a regular and consistent way of building a foundation so that the entire team can be driven into the performance mode. If you have ever driven a 4*4 it is the 4L gear they are using here, To maximize both power and traction, you can rely on low-range 4×4 for crawling over rocks, fording creeks, plowing through deep sand, or negotiating steep off-road trails. This means navigating through tough environments and ensuring the entire vehicle (team) comes out of it, not just a tire (individual).

Looking at some of the clear conversations and pointers, on "HOW" to have an impact:

• Central Core of Business Activities: “Every business needs repeated stimulus.” This stimulus is provided by the management. Managers are the creative force and activating element of business, what do you do for your business differently which helps create a business impact.
• Ensuring Improvisation: Nobody anticipated the pandemic and these are clearly unprecedented times, how do we keep changing or evolving with our business needs. Going by the set rules and the predefined matrix is fine, till there is a change in the ecosystem.
• Looking at Diversity: Diversity essentially means - the wide variety of something. When you are trying to solve a business problem, look at what is the gap and try to address that while solving that problem. It can be Gender, Culture, functional, technical, intellectual, etc. It should cover internal, external, organizational, and worldview—and you should aim to represent them all.
• Be Intentional and Vocal: When you are trying to solve a business problem be intentional about the same and be vocal, always infuse the change early in the process and be consistent to ensure results.

Don't be afraid to do mistakes, Mistakes will happen only when you try to do something, not when you are not doing anything. - HK

These are small yet impactful changes our leaders drive on a daily basis to ensure we grow in what we do and we are getting better at "How" we do.