Staring at the screen, both of us are striving to win the Need for Speed race. Both of us against each other, we just want to win, no matter what! I can’t believe he is the guy I was teaching how to play this game about half an hour back. And now I am struggling to defeat him!?
Continue reading “How Digitisation Can Help Improve Your Induction Program?”
The greatest feeling in the world is watching our children growing right in front of our eyes. All parents can relate to this sentiment very well. The proud moment for all parents is to see their own characteristics developing in their child. My wife and I, without missing a beat say, “That’s our boy” when we see our five year old son Aaran doing anything new that the world or we have taught him. It puts our heads in the clouds to see that our teaching isn’t in vain. However, when we realize that we are not his only teachers in life, the bubble of this feeling bursts; I see him handling some of the life’s tough situations (well, tough for his size) beautifully while playing and I know that I’m not the sole reason for his success. Despite my brain’s natural tendency to see it only as child’s play, I know for a fact that this problem solving is much more than simple play. Play has immense power to solve many of the challenges in life. Every child is blessed with the power of enjoying every moment with ease. I see these kids teaching us some important life lessons each and every day.
Are you the proverbial employee or the owner of your company?
It requires enormous courage to treat people working for you like owners instead of machines . Machines do their jobs but owners do whatever is needed to make their organisation and teams successful. Google has made fascinating discoveries on how to find, grow, and keep people in an environment of freedom, creativity and play. Larry Page and Sergey Brin wanted to create a company where work was meaningful, employees feel free to pursue their passions and people and families feel cared for.
As per their values, when you try to change the world, you are working on important things. You feel excited to get up in the morning. You want to be working on meaningful and impactful projects and that’s the thing which is in shortage in the world.
Many of the meaningful , effective and beloved people practices currently followed by Google today sprouted from seeds planted by Larry and Sergey.
Here are some of the finest and relatable (for us, at FocusU) examples –
Larry and Sergey, both deliberately left space for others to act as founders. They wanted brilliance to work free from the scrutinising eyes of management. At FocusU, we resonate with this attitude. After long hours of search, telephonic chats, we call our probable team players and subject them to meeting many of us. While skills and experience is hygiene, a values match is just as important for us. People who pursue interests apart from work always have an affinity with us.
Our search process takes long. But we rather get it right than making a mistake by rushing into a hire. Not that we get it right all the time! We have had instances where skill or values mismatch have shown up into 3 months of working with us and we have had to call off the engagement. Everyone at FocusU is a hero…here to play a unique role. Each one is encouraged to give full play to their potential, focused on meeting their goals. Yet we are stitched together to play as one team.
At FocusU, display of ownership is recognised. Hunger to learn new things by way of reading books, knowledge sharing, creating new program designs, pursuing learning outside the strict purview of their roles (and which could enhance their capability at FocusU)…all find traction here.
One of the most satisfying elements of our work is being able to watch at very close quarters how different leaders work with their teams. And, we have been fortunate to see many remarkable leaders and their different styles in handling their teams. At the same time, in the course of our interaction with various teams, we do come across leaders who are perhaps still growing into their roles.
From our experience in handling several diverse teams, I would like to point out a few things that you as a leader must watch out for. Avoiding these common leadership mistakes will certainly go to great lengths in firmly establishing yourself as a leader.
Continue reading “4 Common Leadership Mistakes”
We recently worked with a senior team which had a new leader. The fact that the leaders working style was very different from the previous leader and the added fact that nearly half of the members were new to the team, made it necessary for the team to get into an offsite – to try and construct a cohesive team identity.
I discovered an interesting word today: Rectitude.
Continue reading “Book Review : Rectitude by Bereket Negassi”
Gone are the days when induction programs were just about filling forms and ‘death by PPT.’ Organisations across industries are adopting creative, fun, and personalised induction programs.
Continue reading “12 Ways to Improve Employee Induction Programs”
“A leader. . .is like a shepherd. He stays behind the flock, letting the most nimble go out ahead, whereupon the others follow, not realizing that all along they are being directed from behind.” — Nelson Mandela, former President of South Africa
