Learning from Grit Leaders!

Duckworth, a professor of psychology at the University of Pennsylvania and a MacArthur “Genius” professor, devoted years studying what it takes to be successful. In her recent book, “Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance,” she explains that talent alone isn’t enough; you also have to have grit — a mental toughness that helps you persevere even in the face of obstacles.

“grit”? It’s a conversational expression, but it’s also a concept that psychologists have found to be linked to the way that some people continue their effort over time, even when obstacles slow them down.

The qualities Duckworth studies are partly about staying on your path despite setbacks, and resisting distractions: adaptability is good, but if you change your interests so often that nothing gets finished, you’re not really advancing. As she observes, you may need to be flexible, but “you also have to be good at something.” That something needs to be a “long-term passion” to be rewarding; if you find it, your focus will keep you motivated.

She explains that finding with this formula:

TALENT x EFFORT = SKILL

SKILL x EFFORT = ACHIEVEMENT

You won’t succeed in life if you don’t remain on a path you’ve chosen, regardless of how difficult and challenging the road becomes. Most individuals identify it crucial to keep up the hard work and require quick rewards. Long-term goals require time, patience, sacrifices and effort and you need to have the endurance to stay on the path. 

We had a team storytelling session with the leadership team, the theme is to share their life as a movie. They are the hero of the narrative and they need to explain since from their childhood to date. Ups and downs of the journey.

The purpose is to connect with the leadership team members. Understand and establish a deeper relationship among themselves.

Grit is the stubborn refusal to quit. — Jonah Lehrer

In a process, we discovered few of the team members have extraordinarily grit characteristics and they are nurturing those characteristics and continue to promote themselves in the corporate leadership position.

What can we pick up from their adventure?

Some of the team members who have exhibited significant grit in their story. 

Many of the team members shared that they have come from a faraway village, studied extremely hard in a severe situation. They did not have an adequate support system, but still, they have obtained whatever they could gain with limitation, they came to the downtown, tried many approaches to get the finest job. and they continue to demonstrate the same thing as today. They have dreams and persistence for a better life.

If you want to be a leader in an organization, occasionally that means taking calculated risks. You want members on your team who have ideas, won’t back down from a challenge, seek out fresh growth opportunities and produce plans to make it a reality.

They have shared many stories where they have failed many attempts to get selected in the job or various assignments but they bounce back again with fresh vitality. They were not perfect at first attempts, they are not smart at the first attempt, they are not right at first attempt but they keep on trying.

They are the individuals who have tried a distinct avenue to surmount challenges, they have proposed ideas and take action to alter the circumstances. we need staff members who are problem solvers and who are continually seeking for ways that processes can be enhanced. But more than that, we want to find individuals who will act on those ideas. And continue until their success.

They are the team members who are stick to the tasks regardless of the challenges. Staying on task can be demanding and is one of the biggest challenges that some individuals encounter. We need employees who can concentrate on projects for long periods of time and remain engaged throughout the entire process until it’s completed.

Most of these team have experienced from many pains, fear, and grief when I asked a few of them, most of these team members have a tale to tell, how they have experienced tough gift from destiny. Their experiences are rich in events. But today they are standing proudly to share those memories which they are proud of. 

They are committed and optimistic. They realize something beneficial will happen and they will surmount the present condition. They invariably use positive words in their conversation. They look for a ray of hope in crises.

They continue to demonstrate all these characteristics and I am honored to be working with them and learning from them.

Leaders, are you pursuing people properly for the Transformation?

“About twenty percent of the people are against any change.” – Robert F. Kennedy

I encounter many leaders who are extremely efficient at pursuing others for the transformations.

They have the magic and will produce the magic that individuals will buy into it.

I requested a couple of my leader's colleagues to share with me what works with them.

How they pursue others for new change initiatives.

Change is a normal part of our lives, but it’s uncomfortable for the vast majority of people because it makes them feel like they’ve lost control. Do you remember a time when you felt like things were being done to you that you had no control over? That’s how they may feel now. In every way you can, let them know that you can relate to that. – Mary Jo Asmus

There are a few points we need to concentrate on to gain acceptance from the employees, with these approach leaders can certainly pursue the team members for new changes.

• Changes scare people. So Leaders need to assure the individuals that nothing will affect them significantly due to the changes. 
• Individuals tend to find security, so as a leader we have to assure security to the individuals. 
• Employees do not realize why a unique change is happening, as a leader when we ignore to explain the why part, individuals will not be with us. 
• Individuals do not like uncertainty, so as a leader we have to co-create the outlook with the employees where together we will reduce the uncertainty.
• People do not understand the new changes, so as a leader we have to develop the story which is obvious to understand, we have to paint the picture to the people’s minds. So storytelling plays a key role in communicating about the change. 
• People do not like an upside-down change, so the leaders require to safeguard that changes are incremental, then compliance will be significant. Nobody likes abrupt changes.
• Leaders need to allocate additional effort to connect with each and every member of the group about the recent changes. Each human being is unique. They understand differently. Once all the team members are persuaded, they can take care of the whole team by distributing their understanding with each other. 
• As change is taxing on emotion, people do not be in the appropriate mental setup, as a leader we have to acknowledge this mental turbulence and facilitate the team members to overcome. This is the time when the trial of trust will be immense.
• In the change management process, few individuals will lose control and power, the leaders need to acknowledge these factors and focus on each individual’s pride and other respect factors. Fear will be remarkably high at this moment. As fear hijacks our emotions and rational mind, leaders need to accompany the team members at this moment.
• Leaders need to devote time to build trust in the absence of the trust people will not part of our journey.
• New ways of functioning may contribute to problems and challenges which individuals are not comfortable with, as a leader, we desire to understand these factors and support the team members to deal with the challenges.
• Individuals are stressed up owing to too many recent changes, Individuals will resist when they are under stress. The leader needs to observe these stress and focus on relieving this stress. 
• When individuals are not competent with the new upcoming change to deal with, they will resist, as a leader, we need to understand the skill and competency of the existing team members and bridge those where there is a gap
• Acknowledgment, whenever employees are investigating something new, leaders need to acknowledge the improvement and rewards for the modest achievement, it will provide a positive boost to the team members to do more such small initiatives
• With new structural changes, the individual has to move out of their comfort zone, which is a significant challenge as it breaks the normal routine, leaders need to mentor them to surmount these changes. New colleagues, new managers, the new role of the game, etc Leaders can figure out the initial chaos and help the employees.
• Previous bitter change experience triggers the resistance to employees and they spread the negativity into the system, leaders have to be vigilant about such events. Need to serve by communicating regularly and communicating better.
• Leaders have to exhibit empathy with the employees during the transformation journey 
• Employees like when leaders involve them, involve the for consultation, involve them for co-creation, employees accept more about the new change when they are involved.
• Bad change management execution will spoil the whole change management initiatives

Acceptance will be high when Leaders addresses all the above mention situation. They are able to pursue their employees easily in such a situation.

Change cannot be put on people. The best way to instill change is to do it with them. Create it with them. – Lisa Bodell

Leaders, are you leading in autopilot mode?

Let us first glance into the muscle memory which leaders might have formed in their leadership role. 

Muscle memory is a construct of procedural memory that involves reinforcing a definite motor task into memory through repetition, which has been used equally with motor learning.

Muscle memory is strengthened through repetition over time. I might be a department head for the last 5 years so I know what to be done for my business.

Repetition creates new neural pathways in the brain, which actually becomes hard-wired to perform the performed activity. The brain no longer has to perform hard to make it happen, so the activity feels natural for you. We just do it automatically, without having to think about it.

We are in autopilot mode. Yahooo!!

A current study by Daniel Gilbert (who wrote a great book called Stumbling on Happiness) and Matthew Killingsworth, confirms something we’ve all wondered: most of us are ‘mentally checked out’ a good portion of the time. 

If we are practicing a song on the piano over and over again, the idea is that we will continue to advance. 

“Practice makes perfect” can be an authentic phrase because the more we do something, we build up that procedural memory and our brain can quickly instruct our muscles to carry it out. 

The side effect of the muscle memory is that it doesn’t judge whether we are doing good or bad, however, and so if we practice a song poorly for hours on end we are going to be absolutely efficient at making the same mistakes over and over again. All these instructions are written in our unconscious mind for later retrieval. 

This is not merely poor because we have wasted our time learning to be bad or mediocre at a task and may see all this work as a failure. Unknowingly we are making this a habit. When you repeat mistakes again and again, we build muscle memory with those mistakes which makes them even harder to overcome later.

That makes those mistakes even tougher to overcome later. This is one reason why the saying “you can’t teach an old dog new tricks” is generally genuine.

One strong stake is that when we are immature ” when we yet have a most to learn” we have to create a conscious effort to think about what we’re doing. But afterward, after we’ve become more accomplished, considerable of what initially took effort becomes automatic. The great advice is that functioning on autopilot allows us to consume less brain energy on the routine forms of the work.

Ninety-six percent of people in the UK agree to make most decisions on autopilot, according to this research—it has become an epidemic. Our minds are wandering around most of the time.

Our subconscious utilizes muscle memory to automate many types of frequent operations such as: walking, driving, riding a bike, typing on a keyboard, speaking, sport or physical activity. One complication emerges when we start to do things on “autopilot” and we surrender some consciousness about what’s going on around us.

When leaders develop this muscle memory over a stretch of time, they get into the autopilot mode. 

Because Leaders might have seen such instances earlier in their careers, so they know what they have to perform.

But in today’s dynamic world leaders can not work mindlessly in autopilot mode, they have to perform with mindfulness and provide attention to every occurrence.

Leaders reacting to situations with common, predetermined, pre-approved behavior patterns will not perform most of the occasion.

We are residing in an extremely complex world where events are emergent. It is no more the Playing piano or playing golf thousands of times and building muscle memory and get into autopilot mode like daily driving! As a leader, we are handling with diverse complex matters e.g. people.

Much of our behavior is dominated by automatic processes! so while communicating to our subordinate we may get into auto pilot mode and may not be careful. 

What leaders can perform:

• Being Mindful.
• Being connected with the world with data and facts.
• Build a stronger relationship and collaborate.
• Unlearn and learn new ways of working.
• Innovate news ways of building solution and focus on Kaizen( It breaks the autopilot mode)
• Stop and reflect on your day.
• Going beyond the comfort zone.

Look at your autopilot moments and reflect if anything needs to alter.

Guide to build your life Purpose?

All of us are aware of the importance of Purpose driven life.

All the team members I have come across, I share my purpose and enable them to build their own.

If you read the well-known people they live for a purpose.

Let all the team members build their own purpose.

We as a leader build our own purpose.

Every organization, the department has its own purpose.

Now to build our Purpose or refine our purpose, we may use a few questions to be answered and the same can be used when you coach your team members

“Writing or reviewing a mission statement changes you because it forces you to think through your priorities deeply, carefully, and to align your behavior with your beliefs”

~Stephen Covey, ‘7 Habits of Highly Effective People’

• What were you passionate about as a youngster?
• What did you find emotionally fulfilling when you were younger?
• If you didn’t have to work, and you weren’t allowed to stay in the house, how would you choose to spend that time?
• What drives you to forget about the nature around you?
• What themes do you admire to study about? 
• What kind of remarks do you have with your dearest associates?
• Are there any topics that you frequently bring up to communicate about? 
• What do you choose to accomplish before you die? 
• If you had a dream, could you create it to take place?
• What Are You willing to Battle for?
• How Are You Going to Save the World?
• What are part of your adventures you feel appreciative of and you choose to replay it repeatedly?
• What are the numerous ways you have been impacting other people’s existence?
• After one or two decades you choose to record your accomplishment, what you will be recording?
• What you will perform free of cost?
• What do you choose to know for?
• What are your dreams and they are shaping you now and will shape tomorrow?
• What activities when you do, and you put always 150%?
• What you choose to die for?
• What encourages you to travel out of your comfort zone?
• When you get resistance, for what reason you present your 100% to bounce back or push back hard?
• Who is your idol, and why do you cherish this individual?
• What are my core values and beliefs?
• If you recognized you were going to die one year from today, what would you do and how would you choose to be remembered?
• What makes you out of bed in the morning and what keeps you up at night? what energizes you?
• If you have all the capital that is required, how you will allocate your time?

At the end of this exercise you will find tremendous energy and you will get an intrinsic drive to do better and bigger. Give it a try and do it more often.

Variety can destroy Variety

Variety is commonly a descriptor of the volume of potential states within a system.

The variety grows exponentially with the magnitude of organizations and major systems, creating massive extents of complexity with regard to its interactions.

Variety is a measure of complexity.

Ashby’s Law:

W. Ross Ashby was a British cyberneticist and psychologist who, during the 1960s, proposed law with regard to levels of variety and regulation within biological systems. In his words:

When the variety or complexity of the environment exceeds the capacity of a system (natural or artificial) the environment will dominate and ultimately destroy that system.

In order to handle accordingly with the diversity of problems the world throws at you, you require to have a repertoire of responses that are (at least) as nuanced as the problems you face.

Requisite Variety: Requisite means basic or recommended. So requisite variety suggests that you require a specific amount of information for some purpose.

Law of requisite variety: If a system is to be stable, the number of states of its control mechanism must be greater than or equal to the number of states in the system being controlled.

For organizations and teams, Ashby’s law effectively means that they must invariably remain more flexible with their approaches to strategy and operation than the levels of structure and complexity within their systems and operating environment. Sometimes this variety is modest, but occasionally it can be enormous, and thus it is up to the organizations, teams, and the leaders within them to gauge the suitability of their present systems for the environment they operate in.

If the systems which regulate don’t have enough (or requisite) variety to contest the complexity of the regulated, then regulation will fail. The system will be out of control.

All these reasons help us to deal with a complex system.

As a leader, we require to figure out the prevailing complexity of the system and assure a variety of mechanism to handle with the complexity.

Organizations have two choices suitable in shaping for requisite variety - Amplification and Attenuation.

Source: Global Risk Insights

Amplification: Amplification is where the team sets up collaboration with diverse agents in its external environment to strengthen its expertise to respond to stimuli. To amplify variety, we need to empower subordinates, hire more experienced employee, Train existing employees, and Collaborate with external agents etc

Attenuation: Reduction of the variety of possible disturbances given to the essential variables.To attenuate variety, we can Standardize communication and Standardize processes etc.

I am sure most of us are engaged in some of the other ways of dealing with such complexity. As a Leader of a complex system, we must know this and apply this for our own development. Sometimes team members will ask why scaling agile has so many events in the system? this will explain to address complex system, we need to have many meaningful events and leaders should facilitate such events for better results.

Leaders, do you know your Self?

The Ancient Greek aphorism “know thyself” (Greek: γνῶθι σεαυτόν, translated: gnōthi seauton; also ... σαυτόν … sauton with the ε contracted), is one of the Delphic maxims and was carved in the pronaos (forecourt) of the Temple of Apollo at Delphi according to the Greek author Pausanias.

Leadership scholar Warren Bennis, in his study of how successful people learned to become leaders, mentioned that self-knowledge is an essential part of defining a leader’s integrity. ‘‘To become a leader, then, you must become yourself; become the maker of your own life.’’

He discovered that knowing yourself is ‘‘the most difficult task any of us faces. But until you truly know yourself, strengths and weaknesses, know what you want to do and why you want to do it, you cannot succeed in any but the most superficial sense of the word.’’

The dictionary defines self-awareness as the conscious knowledge of one’s own character, feelings, motives, and desires.

Before knowing anything else, we require to know our-self first. We need to know our weaknesses, strengths, beliefs, and desires in life. Keeping in touch with our emotions means we have to be self-aware.

Every leader first they experience themselves before they support others. All of us are leaders, either we coach someone else to become leaders, but first, we have to identify ourselves. 

“As my awareness increases, my control over my own being increases.”

– William Schutz

Few questions to seek to identify our inner self and record them down:

• Who I am? 
• Why Do I signify?
• Why do I get out of bed each day?
• What do I think about myself?
• What do I appreciate about myself?
• Am I a respectable person?
• Who loves me?
• What do I choose to be printed on my gravestone?
• How would I describe the purpose of life?
• Do I feel inspired by someone or something?
• What qualities do I value in life?
• What is life asking of me?
• Who are the most prominent individuals in my life?
• How do I measure my self-worth? 
• Do I know what my talents are?
• What’s my most noteworthy accomplishment?
• What am I good at? 
• Do I realize what I enjoy performing?
• What do I regret doing?
• What am I bad at?
• What makes me glad?
• What makes me angry?
• What makes me unhappy?
• What makes me afraid?
• What stresses me out?
• What relaxes me?
• How do I want others to perceive me?
• What do I desire to alter about myself?
• How would I express my childhood?
• What worries me most about the future?
• What type of individual do I choose to be?
• What type of partner do I want to be?
• How would my best friend describe you?
• Do I have a goal?
• What’s my interpretation of success?
• What is my biggest strength?
• What is your biggest weakness?
• Does it truly matter what others think about me?
• Have I made someone smile today?
• Whose support do I rely on?
• How do I invest the majority of my time?
• Who has had the greatest impact on my life?
• Am I leading my life for myself?
• Do you feel attached to my community?

“Self-awareness is one of the rarest of human commodities. I don’t mean self-consciousness where you’re limiting and evaluating yourself. I mean being aware of your own patterns.”

– Tony Robbins

Thus, strengthening self-awareness takes time, a lot of effort and practice. It demands a person to pay attention to his/her own personality and behavior.

Finest time to discover your Self!! Stay at home and explore your self!

“How hurtful it can be to deny one’s true self and live a life of lies just to appease others.” – June Ahern 

This is the finest chance to identify who you are. 

This time effectively utilized with help all of us in the subsequent days to remain compatible and deal with the world in a stronger manner.

“Knowing yourself is the beginning of all wisdom.” ―Aristotle

Once you know yourself, you will become more confident, you will understand your purpose, and you will start producing a bigger impact on the world.

When we know who we are, we learn what we desire to perform.

The finest and most important adventure of our lives is identifying who we really are.

In order to discover who we are and why we act the way we do, we have to identify our own story. 

Ralph Waldo Emerson said,

“The greatest discoveries are those that shed light unto ourselves.”

Albert Einstein once said this: 

“Everybody is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid.”

You have to figure out yourself and identify your strengths.

Are we fish struggling to climb the tree or fish in the ocean and exploring the ocean and continuing our life what it meant to be!

Author Neale Donald Walsch:

“Your soul is who you are. Your body and your mind are what you use to experience who you are in the Realm of the Relative.”

“Knowing others is intelligence; knowing yourself is true wisdom. Mastering others is strength; mastering yourself is true power.” – Lao Tzu

At the foundation of our desires is living a life of purpose and meaning.

Sit alone for some time as we have the opportunity now to explore our inner self. We are restricted to be at home and it is wonderful moment to discover ourselves.

Be quiet and observe your true self. You cannot and will not be able to identify yourself until you take the time to be still. Once the mind is calm and not much distracted your true self will surface out.

Take inventory.

Buy a diary or notebook and reflect on your life so far. What have you attained? Do you have any major fears? Are you struggling against real obstacles? Have you set reasonable objectives? List down everything and identify which section has better to focus now. 

Discover your Passions:

Note down all the work you preferred to achieve. And plan to start all those passions which trigger your inner self. Write it down.

Think about your hobby:

Look inside and analyze what hobby you choose to start, painting, playing music, writing, cooking, etc, retrospect and note down to commence with one now. 

Read self-discovery books.

Start by becoming familiarized with the concept of self-discovery. Learn the meaning of a personal inventory and how to handle what you find. Reading books about the discovery of self will open new doors of insight and understanding. Read those books and write your thoughts. 

Evaluate your relationships.

A substantial aspect of identifying our personality can be identified in our relationships. When we understand we will never truly know anyone else until we recognize our self, the usefulness of recognizing our self becomes even more visible.

You can ask a few dominant questions to identify yourself better

1. What I am known for?
2. What about myself do I admire most?
3. Classify what I cherish most doing?
4. Identify what brings me joy
5. What prospects of my life do I choose to see a transformation in?
6. What did I choose to accomplish?
7. What are my fears?
8. What am I thankful for?
9. Am I content working out what I’m presently working?
10. What are the most remarkable things I’ve gained in life?
11. Who inspires me the most and what is it that inspires me about them?
12. What do I believe in?
13. What have I accomplished in my life that I am most proud of?
14. What is my biggest core value?
15. How do I feel about your parents?
16. Let me write my own obituary. What I will be writing?

Self-discovery contributes to self-mastery.

Write your own biography:

We can work out this as a mental exercise or in a paper, but the idea is to choose a devoted look backward on our own past as objectively as desirable. Take the time to investigate the choices we have made and question why we made them. Study about the comment we have obtained from colleagues and co-workers. Most specially, even though, be tough on ourselves and sink into our disappointments. When we are walking through that biography, study about how we have been greedy, unpleasant, or cruel. Study about why we were that way. The outcome is to have a better sense of ourselves, so root out as much as we can from our own past. Once we have that biography in hand, we might be astonished at just how much we didn’t know about ourselves before we started.

Leaders, Do not tell us, Show us what to Change.

Tell me and I will forget, show me and I may remember, involve me and I will understand - Chinese Proverb.

Why some of the transformation initiatives are not successful?

What I have been seen, the transformation roadmap steps have been developed somewhere in a close room in the headquarters with some great minds.

Now the same assumptions and directions have come to us with an instruction to enforce the same, What to do and how to go on?

We (The Agile coaches) have been asked to follow the order, and we have received the order to numerous departments and telling them to follow the order of transformation!

Workers with the (Business units) department are perplexed as some of the activities are not aligning with their ways of working or vision. We are also discovering the challenges! the close room designed plan is not matching in a specific context. Due to the cultural and Ego clash, individuals are not eager to acknowledge the mistake!

Leaders are pressuring why things are not progressing? by this time miracle should have taken place! Who to blame?

So they started searching for the scapegoats, someday, we got the scapegoat, some time execution process to be blamed for the transformation failure.

Few of the root cause we noticed, but headquarters are not granting us to deviate the path as they might have lost the power.

People tend to resists changes if those changes are thrust upon them.

Telling is like thrusting changes on them.

When we tell, the signals pass, this is the better way of doing, your current ways of working is incorrect. This provokes resistance in the mind as it hurts the self-esteem of the people who are working at the grass-root level.

The magnitude of resistance is expected to be inversely proportioned to our level of self-esteem.

It depends on how the team members at grass root level feel about themselves with the unique changes.

They essentially act in reaction, reactive thinking is most of the time due to low self-esteem.

The creative thinker does not resist changes.

So the telling approach will have tremendous resistance which leads to a lot of waste of time and energy.

So what do we do? A different approach. 

what is that?

How can we alter the telling to show? How can we change telling to involving?

Let us use lean thinking, where people who are with the system, they realize what changes we require. People in the team possess vast knowledge, wisdom, creativity, and energy. Best leaders access the wealth of experience and empower their people through the effective use of the questions.

Based on our experience what is functioning in the approach which are:

When we tell people what to and how to do it, there is an inclination to resist.

When ideas come from the people they will support it

When we tell, it is giving the message that they are doing something which is wrong and they become more defensive.

When we ask the team to provide input they get encouraged and they become more creative and they get in buy-in

For any such transformation change initiative, we first call for the workshop with all the team members. we do 1-2 days workshop to discover the problem and later we do a solution workshop.

Where we all together come out to figure out what best works for us.

We start the experiment and determine what is best applicable to our environment.

As an expert, we become mentors and facilitate the session.

Where ever require we do training, coaching and mentor the team member?

It works best as a team co-create the solutions.

I am sure you might have also experienced similar types of approach and with the design thinking approach, this has become much easier to implement and get the buy-in from the people easily.

You have these Ego Trap....I am sure you are not aware!

When communicating with the leaders as a part of leadership coaching, most of the time, we come across this Ego Trap where leaders are the victim. Not only leaders even team members are also the victim of these. 

How do we point these to the leaders or team members?

First, we require to recognize if the leaders or team members are the victims of Ego Trap.

All of us will succumb to our egos at some point. It’s inescapable.

The vital thing is that we work out our best to realize these traps when we fall into them and then study how to avoid them moving forward.

Professor Bacharach went on to explain that there’s a balancing act involved, noting that “pragmatic leaders are careful not to let their egos get in the way of achieving their goals and executing their agendas.”

An ego trap is any belief and habit you have that makes you feel like you’re superior to other people (physically, mentally, emotionally, morally, spiritually) and the root of it is the dominating worry of insignificance and unworthiness

In the negative, the ego fools us into becoming overly identified with our bodies, thoughts, and emotions.

As Lao Tzu says, “He who knows does not speak. He who speaks does not know.”

The ego is never satiated. It doesn’t matter how much you have, your ego will continue on asking for more. It is never sufficient, you will be trapped.

The ego loves to keep us trapped there—rehashing old troubles, perceived mistakes, ancient regrets.

“The ego constantly competes with the spirit for control over your inner voice.” – Darren L. Johnson

You are trapped when you have below symptom

• You are ignoring negative comment.
• Submerged into positive feedback! People can use this superficial flattery to appeal to your ego and, finally, influence your decision-making in order to benefit themselves or their business
• You love control; you feel wonderful when you exercise this power
• You know everything and no need to change anything. You are not welcoming any fresh suggestion.
• You do not walk the talk, 
• You always walk with Yes sir people. You choose to walk with them as they listen to you and accept you
• You do not like to receive criticism if someone wants to share with you
• You think you have all the answers in the room, and nobody knows as much as you know
• You demand people follow you
• You lost in touch with the latest happenings and you live in your own best world
• You love to receive 1000 likes on Facebook, if it less, you feel sad!
• You are worried about how others will read you! you work for others to get acknowledge
• You benchmark yourselves with others always
• You are living in the past, carrying past and worry for the future
• You judge the individuals based on their action
• You communicate with others to impress them
• You take yourself seriously 
• You need individuals to be around yourself to acknowledge your contribution
• You want to win at any cost and always right 

“We must go beyond the constant clamor of ego, beyond the tools of logic and reason, to the still, calm place within us: the realm of the soul.” – Deepak Chopra

We need to reverse act against all these points to maintain a healthy life and become healthy individuals. It takes a lot of practice to control self-ego!

Why we do not compliment more amply?

How can we become a better leader or a better individual? One of the outstanding virtues of a stronger leader and better individual is who acknowledge other’s contribution. Encourage others to do more such excellent work.

Why leaders are stingy in complimenting others? they feel insecure? when they have to compliment. 

Have you come across such a leader? Why we have many such leaders? When they will change? 

Why individuals do not Compliment easily? Why they record merely the dreadful instances?

Mark Twain once said, “I can live for two months on a good compliment.”

Criticisms often have a stronger impact than compliments, and bad news frequently gets further recognition than good. The reason for this is that negative events have a greater impact on our brains than positive ones. Psychologists refer to this as negative bias.

The negative bias is our tendency not only to register negative stimuli more easily, but also to dwell on these events.

“The bad stuff is easier to believe. You ever notice that?” says Julia Roberts’ character, Vivian, in Pretty Woman (1990). As it turns out, Roberts’ character, Vivian, was touching on an unfortunate psychological truth; the “bad stuff” is indeed easier to believe and the reasons why may surprise you.

Dr. Bono explains, “Danny Kahneman (an economist who won the 2002 Nobel prize for his work) has designed studies in which participants are asked to imagine either losing $50 or gaining $50. Even though the amount is the same, the magnitude of the emotional response is significantly larger for those imagining what it would be like to lose the money. In other words, the negativity of losing something is far greater than the goodness of gaining something…even when the “something” that has been lost or gained is objectively equivalent.”

We are good at registering negative than positive!!!

Why We Should Compliment More?

• Every. Single. One. Obviously, individuals are hungry for compliments.
• Greater appreciation contributes to enhanced communication, better relationships, and better contentment.
• Create so much positive energy that they make things happen almost like miracle!
• Paying someone a compliment can also be an efficient conversation starter
• Compliments make the world a better place
• They identify an individual that they are worthwhile of notice
• A genuine compliment is a form of spreading graciousness along with gratitude.
• Kindness has a ripple effect. Your compliment will, in theory, inspire that recipient to readily allow another a compliment; then that person will be inspired to do the same; and so on.

What are the parts of a stable compliment? we require to take care below aspects

• It should be specific
• It should be from your heart
• Observe all the good thing and distribute more 
• It must have supporting evidence
• It must be unconditional
• It must be valuable 
• It must be acceptable

Faux compliments are prone to have the opposite effect as legitimate ones.

When we encounter that leaders are not doing such action, we encourage leaders to commence this practice more and better.

Research shows receiving a compliment can strengthen performance, social interaction, positivity in relationships and raise general happiness.

“Compliments can lift moods, improve engagement with tasks, enhance learning and increase persistence,” Professor Nick Haslam, School of Psychological Sciences, University of Melbourne

How to establish a culture of Fear!

As a leader, perhaps you choose to establish fear in the team members’ minds!!

How can you create fear in the ecosystem?

You are a leader and you have seen such a leader in your career so you want to be like them!

The below rule will work …..

• Ensure people should not speak of their minds. If someone is expressing their mind, call them in a room and caution them not to express whatever they think, check with you, before they express anything in public.
• If anyone makes any mistake or disobey the team law, punish them in public.
• Check what time people are coming to office, how many time they go out for the break, check their activities, ask them to send you the daily report about the work, ensure they log 9 hrs at the office and ask for clarification for any deviation
• Ensure people do not perform as a team, create silos about work and assure people do not help each other. Everyone needs to contribute.
• Watch employee like a hawk.
• Examine the daily report and punish team members if they miss the daily goal
• If anything goes wrong, look for the individual answerable for the mistake and ensure it does not repeat, they are employed to perform the duty 
• Have a one to one with all the team members and ensure they adhere to your authority. Identify only the things for improvement items, do not allow them to sit on top of your head, bring them down by identifying fault from their activity.
• Give them spiritual and best practice lectures but ensure it does not adhere to at work
• Ensure people do not waste time in celebration and other nonproductive activities
• If there is a conflict among team members, you allow them to fix the conflict on their own. 
• Look for the key person from the team who can work for you as an informer, he/she should be your Yes sir person. Provide him/her opportunities 
• Minimize face-to-face communication and use mails, challenge individuals to send you mail if any issue.
• You accomplish works because “that’s the way it’s consistently been done.”
• When an employee comes to protest about something, notify them that you will look into it later, ask them to go and concentrate on work
• Ensure you pretend that you are absolutely busy and not freely accessible to individuals
• Ensure there is a competition among team members
• Tightly control the budget, do not spend on people unnecessarily, they are all cost to the company
• Focus more on the process, then people 
• Usages discouraging, demotivating statement
• Reveal your anger when circumstance demand.

Have you come across such Leaders? I know perhaps such leaders are rare!! You know, he/she has already a solid linkage with the top executives.

What do you do as a coach with such Toxic leaders?

From Reactive to Creative Mindset

I Wish to Move myself FROM REACTIVE TO CREATIVE mindset

Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one’s courage.

Anais Nin

I choose to build up a creative mindset and help others to achieve the same.

What do I do and how can I shun a reactive mindset? I am sure all of wish to do the same.

That is the thought running in my mind for a long time.

We negotiate with our challenges and demands in a way that just passes them move elsewhere, instead of addressing them creatively to understand how they can serve us most.

We seek short-term targets or result instead of realizing the long term. We consider for immediate gain and pain removal techniques.

We expect we will see in the future if it does not come out. Most of us choose to show the result for now. Live for now and avoid pain.

For a creative mindset to stimulate, we require to understand the long term and reach deeper.

Reactive mindset and creative mindset individuals experience life separately.

Reactive mindset leaders consistently have a thought of being in a power struggle to control outside forces that offer an uncertain possibly dangerous future.

Reactive mindset people concentrate on gaining the approval of others, defending oneself, and obtaining results through excessive control tactics.

Reactive behaviors inhibit or impede change, undermine collective efficacy, and sub-optimize performance.

Reactive Leaders and Individuals are usually

• More anxious with how they are performing than with what they are accomplishing; 
• Do actions by custom, rather than making the right things; 
• Over-control and micromanage; 
• Avert conflict by not focusing on actual issues;
• Fail to lead by constantly raising ideas for change to higher authority to gain approval to move forwards; 
• Expect top management to have all the says, to present the charismatic vision and to establish the dilemmas; 
• Blame others for obstacles and claim no share of complicity themselves; 
• Wait for the culture to change.Some one will change it.
• Think that vision and direction must develop first from above, and that the job of those below is to accept it—rather than to co-create the future, and suggest what they’re expected to say in meetings and have the legitimate discussions later. 

When we take up the Reactive mindset, we pursue truths that previously exist and establish beliefs that we already have.

The Reactive mindset leaders chokes on uncertainties, discrepancies, dialectical interchanges, and emergent opportunities—all factors that feed and sustain the Creative mind-set individuals.

Reactive mindset individuals search for, predictions, expectations, estimates, plans, and measures.

Creative Mindset people, on the other hand, are dynamic enough to associate with outside forces in shaping a future worth living.

When we are in the Reactive mindset, we form hasty decisions, act rapidly, get into an autopilot mode, and rupture into development with stubborn.The determined effort aimed at reaching exactly fixed goals.

A creative mindset makes us a Creator. An aspect of reality—the chaos, the speed, the barriers, the mistakes, the bonuses—turns into supply for our creativity.

Creative Leaders use the flexibility required to shift obstacles into checkpoints, trigger optimism that can stimulate to apply mistakes to develop extraordinary fresh opportunities and work out the passion to cut through chaotic conditions so that they can choose where to establish their attention.

When we are in the Creative mindset, we explore out ways to collaborate and cooperate with others.

A creative mindset is always legitimate, it drives us to form rejuvenating relationships with others who recognize our higher purpose.

When we are in a Reactive mindset, we plunge on these opportunities and choose the most efficient answer.

When we are in the Creative mind-set, we excavate the power inherent in the decision and use it to construct the outcomes we choose. This power is what generates life inspiring and valuable. A perfect life waiting for us to discover.

Why you need to evaluate Group Dynamics in your group coaching?

I am certain as a coach, you might be working out many groups coaching on numerous topics.

One of the fundamental is to figure out the group dynamics to drive such a coaching session. In my coaching journal, I am capturing these factors. If you are a leader of the Group, you need to take care all these aspects.

If you are coaching a few Feature teams, Squads, you will be able to find these group dynamics easily and handle easily when you understand this.

Kurt Lewin, a social psychologist, and change management expert is credited with coining the term “group dynamics” in the early 1940s. He indicated that people generally pick up on unique roles and behaviors when they work in a group.

“Group dynamics” specifies the effects of these roles and behaviors on other group members and on the group as a whole.

Group dynamics deal with the attitudes and behavioral patterns of a group. Group dynamics concern how groups are formed, what is their structure and which processes are adhered to in their functioning. Thus, it is concerned with the interactions and forces running between groups.

A group has certain common objectives & goals. Because of which members are tied up together with specific values and culture.

Group members form alliances within the group and the group itself adopts accepted behavior norms. If there is a positive dynamic, they will accomplish their goals, even if those are simply to play cards.

The greater the loyalty of a group toward the group, the greater is the motivation among the members to achieve the goals of the group, and the greater the probability that the group will achieve its goal.

Working agreement among team members:

Working agreement is common standards of behavior within a group that are shared by the members of the group. Working agreement describe the boundaries of acceptable and unacceptable behavior. They are normally designed in order to facilitate group survival, make behavior more predictable, avoid uncomfortable conditions, and express the values of the group. Each group will establish its own set of norms that might determine anything from the appropriate dress to how many comments to make in a meeting. Groups exert pressure on members to force them to conform to the group’s standards. The norms often reflect the level of commitment, motivation, and performance of the group.

Group Cohesiveness:

Cohesiveness refers to the bonding of group members and their desire to remain part of the group. Many factors influence the amount of group cohesiveness. More difficult it is to obtain group membership, the more cohesive the group. Groups also tend to become cohesive when they are in intense competition with other groups or face a serious external threat to survival. Smaller groups and those who spend considerable time together also tend to be more cohesive.

Few examination which help to understand the group dynamics better:

• What roles are numerous individuals performing in the group?
• Who is pacifying whom?
• Who has the authority in the group?
• How do decisions get established in the group?
• Who gets time and how is that negotiated among members?
• Other than the leader’s direction, how is it determined who talks and what is examined?
• Which coalitions have developed? Who is associated with whom?
• Which alliances have formed temporarily and permanently?
• Which members are in conflict with one another?
• Are the boundaries within a group open sufficient to grant fresh information to arrive the group?
• Who gets into your group? What are the entry or exit criteria?
• How do members communicate with one another? Are the lines of communication clear and direct?
• Where do members direct their attention when leaders speak?
• Do group interactions tend to move in patterns that move toward preserving the structure reliable?
• What norms have established in the group that governs behavior?
• Which rules were confirmed by the leader versus which ones emerged covertly by members?
• How is information exchanged among group members?
• How did people share what they know with one another? Who was eliminated or avoided?
• Which factors were accepted and rejected? What significant message was rejected? How was the information synthesized?
• Did change in a group occur via the use of positive and negative feedback?
• How are conflicts dealt with? Who doesn’t like whom? What are the means that members try to disrupt or undermine one another or the leader? How do members demonstrate their discord with what is going on? So who works to establish things better? Who oppress the conflict? Who tries to create interruption?
• What was the total outcome of the group so far?

If you as a coach does your home work better, it will help you to pass your message clear over a period of time.

“Archer’s Paradox”, What can we know from this?

Why team members need to learn about the “archer’s paradox”?

I invariably choose to explain several occasions about this information,

The term was first used by E.J. Rendtroff in 1913,[1] but specific descriptions of the phenomenon appear in archery literature as early as Horace A. Ford’s 1859 text “Archery: Its Theory and Practice”

In order to be accurate, an arrow must have the correct stiffness, or “dynamic spine”, to flex out of the way of the bow and return to the correct path as it leaves the bow. Incorrect dynamic spine results in unpredictable contact between the arrow and the bow, therefore unpredictable forces on the arrow as it leaves the bow, and therefore reduced accuracy.

What is THE ARCHER’S PARADOX?

To shoot the target, aim dead-on? Not necessarily. Archery provides us an excellent lesson of why initial misses can be vital. Arrows flex, and this means their trajectory curves in mid-air. Archers have to factor in the stiffness of the arrow’s shaft in order to judge how far its flight will deviate. This is the “archer’s paradox”: for a perfect shot, you have to aim slightly away from the bulls-eye.

Occasionally the particular way to get an understanding for things is to fire some arrows and understand how they fly. Consider of your mistakes as test shots: study at where your efforts land, and that can tell you how to correct your aim next time.

During sprint planning meeting the conversation comes out about the rework reduction and the strategy to minimize rework. Through this rework, as a team, we explore many things. We stabilize an abundance of ways of working, we reach our mastery level.

In a popular TED Talk, art historian Sarah Lewis describes watching archers practice over and over again to master the “archer’s paradox” whereby to hit a target, you have to aim slightly askew. This, she argues, is the difference between success and mastery: it’s a success to hit the target, and mastery to be able to hit it more than once—but to reach that point, you have to miss many times.

Many great artists, Lewis adds, didn’t much care for some of their artworks that others value greatly: the “near win” that doesn’t please its maker is a part of learning. Being able to judge your work negatively should be taken as a sign of increasing mastery, as it means you are developing expertise.

Initial several sprints will be part of the Forming and Storming process for team discovery plus the technological discovery phase. It is a journey in which we keep maturing ourselves.

Will you share similar topics to alter the mindset of the Leaders?

Good Leader's Character

I want to be a good leader.

All of us are leaders, at home and at office. 

All of us need to exhibit leadership skills at every juncture in life. 

Are we working to mature these skills? 

Leadership character is the core initial step to reflect and intensify

“Effective leadership is the only competitive advantage that will endure. That’s because leadership has two sides—what a person is (character) and what a person does (competence).”—Stephen Covey

What should I practice on a daily basis? I do not want to fallback from all these.

Let us learn and coach other to learn....

The Agilist's Guidebook- 1000 copies

Happy message to share with you all!!! Please continue reading and sharing it with all. Help me to reach as many readers as possible and encourage me to make this Made in India book successful.

Why do startups need more agile ways of working?

The startup needs innovation to survive in the ecosystem if the innovation flow dries, the business dies!

Innovation is no more individual’s work, it has grown into more Teamwork.

A startup survives based on the innovative ideas brought into the table and validated those hypotheses with the legitimate consumer by moving to market as quickly as they can.

Though many technology companies believe they know more about customer needs because they influence the customer to buy technological products and solutions. As Henri Ford said, if I ask my customers, they would say, they need the fastest horse! perhaps true, perhaps not in today's context.

As we know, solutions developed into a better product based on the three aspects, feasibility, viability and desirability. When all these elements meet its sweet spot, we build world-class products and solutions which customers buy.

We may build an extraordinarily valuable technical solution, but if it does not sell, organizations would not last long. It is the conjunction with the market and sense, where we are heading, will set the team for success.

To achieve this sweet solution and scale up to get millions of $, we require to strongly hold each other as a team and create a culture of innovation.

It is a journey of forming to the performing stage. Innovation is a precondition into the DNA of the teams, and teams need to collaborate and co-create the technical solution with end-users.

Individual EGO plays an integral role in such an environment. The big corporation recognizes the advantage of a small team and startup culture. Large enterprises are breaking themselves into a small startup team and implanting an entrepreneurial mindset into the team to rapidly build innovating product and solutions.

Why Agile?

Agile culture is all about collaboration culture. People collaboration and developing the appropriate solution together. Agile culture does not encourage heroism in a team.

When we are together, we are more innovative.

How agile ways of working will create more innovation?

Innovation must come from multiple sources, both internally and externally. When individuals and their diverse points of view and experiences converge, they discover the types of innovations that individuals could not have done or found alone.

Innovation requires tearing down the primitive rules of understanding and establishing fresh ones. This means each member of the team must become more transparent than ever before. As such, each member of the team must trust themselves enough to trust each other.

Collaboration is not just about working intimately together, but also about taking leaps of faith together to discover new ways of thinking and create greater outcomes.

Communication play a key role in team innovation, Communication means a lot, the way in which we communicate sets the style and propels thinking in a variety of directions that contribute to fresh innovations.

Team members must challenge each other to think more critically and think through a lens of continuous improvement. Looking through this lens requires the mindset of a “Bold, strong enabler” – one who takes charge and embraces the role of a change agent in the encouragement of constructive disruption that finally makes things work better and enhances performance.

Google led a two-year research project with 280 teams. They discovered only one distinction between innovative and non-innovative teams—psychological safety. Teams have psychological safety when their members feel they have approval to candidly share ideas and try new things without fear of negative effects. This is completely true given the attempt to create such safety does contribute a team to engage in overly consensual discussions where every idea that emerges is a valuable one.

Innovation requires the capacity to see how something that exists could be better. For this, one requires to associate with the world,with the customers and step into other people’s shoes, to understand their lives, and identify problems that may exist from their perspectives. Through empathy, one can understand what people “Do”, “Think”, and “Feel”, and, in turn, open themselves up to new creative possibilities that lead them to innovate.

Team members must allow themselves to ask stupid questions and propose stupid ideas. For that, we undoubtedly have to trust that others won’t make fun of you and, even worse–share your stupid ideas and questions outside the team and the meeting. 

Most of us like the traditional way of managing things. We do not have to leap over a learning curve, nor do we have to try new ways of doing things. New ideas often receive indifferent reactions at best and hostile responses at worst. We need to change the way of thinking as a team(From doing something to being new-thing).

“I see true innovation to be made up of three ‘creativities’ – creativity in technology, product planning, and marketing.” ~ Akio Morita

What kind of leadership support do we expect? 

Since primitive days, individuals have flocked closely in tribes to pursue security in an ecosystem of plenty of trouble, life threats, and challenges. Those tribes were not detached, but they had both conflicting and friendly relations with other tribes. However, it was in this environment where individual beings set up innovating with things like the wheel, weapons, construction, or transport, driven by the desire for survival. This kind of innovation would not have been feasible by isolated individuals; Hence, it is meaningful to recognize that innovation is not about sole genius but about collaborative genius.

For generations, mankind has been noticing and rewarding creative individuals, but the truth is that innovation seldom takes place without cooperation and collaboration.

Thus, it sounds straightforward to understand key elements of innovation is the collaboration. 

Therefore, in this case(Tribal Leadership stages), stages 1 and 2 represent a situation with no teamwork and collaboration.

Stage 3 shows a typical organization where there is very limited teamwork and management approach is command and control.

Stage 4 is a stage where teamwork happens, and high-performing teams can definitely be represented here.

Stage 5 for us represents collaboration communities where different nodes connect each other to work together.

In this context, innovation happens within organization in a very limited amount in stage 3 (i.e., military environment); however, within organizations, innovation is strongly happening in stage 4 (i.e., 3M, Google, Microsoft, etc.).

Maximization of innovation can only happen in stage 5 where collaborative economy, exchange of ideas, shared trust, open frameworks, and creative environments are the norm (i.e., Silicon Valley). 

This type of leaders is also mentioned by Collins where he identified organization with higher performance than similar companies during 15 years in a row. These companies were led by 41 CEOs labeled by their employees as quiet, humble, modest, reserved, shy, gracious, mild-mannered, self-effacing, understated, did not believe his own clippings, and so on. He mentions that these successful leaders put their ego away, focusing in the “we” more than in the “I.” 

Essentially, leaders in stages 4 and 5 set up a tone in the organization where purpose, shared values, and rules allow to create the conditions for the ideal behaviors and thinking process to come up.

Those leaders are masters managing the inevitable tensions that arise between the individual and the group, and they do it by clearly setting purpose, defining clear values, setting example, and being able to manage the group behavior and psychology.

Research shows that teams functioning within strict environments with definite processes and protocols are less likely to obtain their goals and generate new ideas.

Give your teams the freedom to think differently, using the tools they need, the way they want to. More uncertain the environment is , more we need to give freedom, trust has to be high.Then team will come up with innovating solution.

With the help of each other we create a learning organization and grow fast.

Robert F. Brands, author of “Robert’s Rules of Innovation II,” says that it’s important to first understand that individuals and organizations may be their own worst enemies when it comes to creativity and often set up their own innovation roadblocks.

Look at your own setup and see what can be done better to create an innovative startup mindset and get into the Being agile.