Influencing Human Behavior At Workplace - Leadership Essentials

 

Let's understand the frustration of many leaders and startup founders who dwell on the lack of productivity from their team in spite of having skilled and hi pots employees at their disposal. Why do many leaders find it difficult to build a collaborative culture, an engaged workforce, and a high-performance team?

Many a time people in the top management and leadership team do not ask tough questions to themselves. Why are my employees not committed enough? Why is my team performing much below their potential? The same goes for middle-level managers as well.

The answer is simple –the top management often fails to connect with people. They fail to establish a connection between the company's vision to actual needs and aspirations of the people. They don't do enough to motivate people, which is the fundamental requirement of a high-performance culture and a driver for extraordinary business results. They possess blind spots and as a result, they only get ordinary results from their team and continue to adopt the same approach which fails miserably.

Unless employees are motivated, they won't be actively engaged and if they are not actively engaged they won't be productive as desired.

Therefore, the first rule of leadership is to motivate and enroll people into your thinking, your vision, your dream, your fantasy, whatever that you are doing. Enroll them. It takes time. It takes effort. It takes continual reinforcement. But you don't dictate. You enroll. Period! After all, why will people help you achieve your dream and work for the company's vision if leaders can't sell what's in it for them? You as a leader have to induce the WANT in your people to do a good job.

"MOTIVATION CAN NEVER BE FORCED. PEOPLE HAVE TO WANT TO DO A GOOD JOB"!

People can never be forced to do an extraordinary job. They will perform extraordinary only if they want to. The challenge is to give them a reason to want to. And people will only want to perform exceedingly well and produce great results, if they feel like an important part of the organization. Financial motivation only works up to a point. Money is never a continuous motivator.

Sigmond Freud, the greatest psychologist says, There is only one way to get anybody to do anything. Yes, just one way. Remember, there is NO OTHER WAY! Action springs out from our fundamental desires. We all have common wants - Health and the preservation of life, food, sleep, money and the things money will buy, happy & joyful Life, sexual gratification, the well-being of our family. Almost all these wants are usually gratified – all except one. "The desire to be important"

So, its imperative for top management and mid-level managers to make their team members feel important. How? It's not that complex – Respect them, include them, empower them, trust their skills and abilities, let them fail and learn, recognize them, encourage them to take risks, train them, coach and mentor them, give them the freedom to work as they see fit and most importantly "be genuinely interested in them". Be interested in their professional development rather than thinking only about what's best for the company. Be only strategically rigid but tactically flexible.

Expressing genuine interest in others – there's no better way to make people interested in you. People respond to people who are sincerely interested in them. They can't help but respond. This one is one of the most basic facts of human psychology. Attention and Interest make people feel important.

You can't wait until you call everybody up and say, "Will you join me for a drink?" You make them want to come along. You ride and they want to ride along. You have got to make them want to ride along. It's a leader's job to foster those feelings. The leadership language and day to day communication should be uplifting and inspiring.

Motivate them, Inspire them, Win their hearts and they will give you their minds.

 

THE 3R CHECKLIST TO RETAIN TOP PERFORMERS

Well, why do employees quit? – It's even more frustrating when the employee is one of the top performers in your team.

It's the burning question that has been around forever and more so now after the pandemic with the attrition rate at an all-time high across all major industries. HR professionals are wrapping their brains around this to find answers and adopting all necessary measures to control attrition. However one of the reasons still remains the same. We have all heard of this saying "People quit bosses and not the organization” – which holds true even today.

When we talk of engagement and emotional connection that binds people to any company, let me break this to you – A company's logo or brand name doesn't appear in people's minds when they generate their thoughts inside their head about an organization. They don't visualize these abstracts. 

The connection is established through "People" – through their managers, through their peers and the leadership team, which comprise the organization's overall culture and work environment. They take a mental picture of all these people and build their emotions and thoughts around them. And if the bad memories they have directly or indirectly with these sets of people, outweigh the good memories, that's when they pause and think – It's not the right place for me.

Hence, enhancing employee experience is not just the job of HR but the supervisors and the leadership team as well. As a leader, as a manager; at every juncture, every decision you make, every word you utter has a value. You are watched, judged and followed.

So, here's the 3R checklist for managers to retain their top performers.

Respect – Although respect for individuals is a fundamental core value, at times when a team member commits a mistake, some managers do overreact and lose their temper. Maybe they don't mean disrespect but have less control over their tone and the language they use. Even if it happens at the spur of the moment and the manager forgets the episode, mind you – the employee remembers. Therefore, it is wise to practice calmness and use tools of assertiveness, emotional intelligence and how feedback is to be given in such situations.

Recognition – It doesn't imply the existing rewards and recognition programs. As a manager, to leave a positive imprint, it's a necessity to genuinely appreciate your team members even for small achievements and efforts in their routine job. A simple email “thank you for your efforts” would do wonders. And more importantly one should be authentic and not plastic. They say, “What gets appreciated, gets repeated”.

Remuneration – If you are waiting for the year-end performance appraisal to correct your team member's salaries, you might end up approving their resignations much ahead of time. It is foremost to keep a check on your team members financial satisfaction and motivation levels. If as a team lead you happen to come across any such red flags, build a case for HR and do your best what can be done concerning the team members remuneration if you find the reason valid. That’s how you stand up for their cause and build trust.

The 3R Checklist can be used as a tool by managers to avoid losing top performers. Its not that difficult nevertheless, its key to be aware and be more proactive.

SABARIMALA - LAW MESSING WITH FAITH FOR NO REASON AT ALL!!

There are million of women on streets of Kerala but sadly no one is trying to listen to them. No one is paying heed to their perspective.

There are few questions that are still lingering in my mind as to why on earth do people assume and decide on behalf of others when they are clueless about the subject or the ground reality.

• ·       How many women devotees were asked by the committee who filed PIL whether they feel oppressed?
• ·       Did the Supreme court had any data as to whether this is case of discrimination against women? Did the people of same faith wanted a reform?
• ·       How did the Urban feminist brigade, the media and gender equality messiahs learnt that the practice in Sabaramila implies to a thought process of women being considered as impure?
• ·       Why are clueless people from other religion being considered as experts to discuss the issue of Sabaraimla on TV debates?
  

The answer is simple. They are all ill-informed and belong to a part of the recently developed culture that thinks any kind of differentiation against women is discrimination. If this is an infringement of women rights, then why million women devotees are on the streets protesting? And the count of number of actual women devotees who feel they are discriminated due to such a practice is not even one till date.

The tradition in Sabaramila is unique. The customs and practices there is different to any other temple. But is it not the fact that every temple in India has its own deity with different tradition and practices being followed with respect to the mythology or scripture pertaining to that particular deity. The customs, the tradition and the way the deity is to be prayed varies from temple to temple in this country since centuries.

The way one offer prayers to Lord Badrinath in Uttarakhand is different to that of Lord Balaji in Tirupati. The way we pray, the way we speak, the way we live, the thousands of customs etc makes this country diverse and so beautiful the way it is. We simply cant apply the theory of Mono-culture to promote sameness. This will put an end to our diversity. We are a country that worships 53 crores deities unlike any other country or culture and yes, there are more women deities than men.

In case of Sabaramila, the deity, “Lord Ayappa” resides in the form of Naishitika Brahmachari, the one who eternally practices celibacy and hence as per the concept such an oath implies that the deity restricts himself to see any women of marriageable age.

Now all those women who wants to enter the temple, should they be called as devotees or believers ? If you don’t believe in your deity how can you call yourself a devotee? The feminists say it’s my right to pray., I will pray, and it doesn’t matter even if the deity doesn’t accept my prayers. It's my fundamental right. This is nothing but foolishness in the name of gender equality. In the name of feminism and activism our age-old tradition is being attacked. They want to go pray to a God that apparently doesn’t want to see them.

In fact, not a single women devotee agrees to the supreme court verdict. Neither the media is paying heed to what they say. They are just underestimating the intelligence of these women devotees and think they are gender equality messiahs.

Sabaramila is a place dedicated to only Lord Ayappa Devotees. It is not a tourist place like Akshardham or Taj Mahal where people from all kinds of faith pay a visit to have a fun trip and click selfies with their family and friends.  And hence it should not be treated as a public place and allow people from all walks of life irrespective of faith / no faith / believers / non believers / atheists etc.

As per the customs, the devotees who visit Sabaramala has to practice a 41 Day vratam, a ritual wherein they abstain themselves from any reproductive activity, don’t wear slippers, eat satvik diet, carry irumudis (often prepared by their wives and daughters which is meant to carry their wishes) on their head, climb the hill and finally have a darshan. Now all of a sudden, all the women who are non-devotees and activists including female journalists land up there to enter the temple thinking they are there to reform and save these devotees from the oppression. The fact is they looked foolish and no knowledge of the actual custom and practices of the temple.

Some media houses stooped so low that they started comparing Sabarimala to socially evil practices like Sati and Child marriage. In these cases clearly, the women were considered inferior, our society was a male dominated one and women from those particular community or sect did protest against it. Whereas the case of Sabaramila has got nothing to do with gender discrimination or practices that harm anyone. In, fact people of all castes and tribes are devotees of Lord Ayappa. There are several other Ayappa temples where the deity is in the form of a child or a youth where the women devotees do visit for darshan and offer their prayers. Sabarimala is not the place for women to worship because here the same deity is placed in the form of a Brahmachari. Here are some other temples where Lord Ayappa is worshipped in other forms.

It’s the deity’s right that has to be respected. In a real-life scenario; you cannot force a man to have sex if he wishes to remain virgin. Similarly, being a guy, you don’t enter the women’s loo. It’s a matter of common sense. It doesn’t require pseudo intellect to understand this simple logic. After all the temple is built for the deity and not for women activists and non-devotees to practice their fundamental right and mislead people in the name of gender discrimination.

No country destroys its own traditions, the way we do in India. Its not progressive but rather one of the most regressive and worst verdict ever passed by the Supreme Court. Courts should not interfere in matters related to faith unless a faith or a belief causes harm to the society like other social evils of the past and law should only step in when people of same faith wants a reform.

Jay

ISIS- THE ROGUE NATION

The ISIS (Islamic State of Iraq & Syria) is not just a group of brutal terrorists but it’s an idea. It is a straight line manifestation of an aggrieved religious sect. So, the argument goes how can you kill an idea? Countries are capable of militarily destroying the ISIS and its leadership but the Suni grievances will remain. There will always be another strongman who will take up the cudgel.

Much attention is paid to the extreme, distressing and sadistic propaganda disseminated by ISIS, who go to great lengths to circulate violent images and videos of the atrocities it commits.

The ISIS plans to take control of the Middle East, North Africa, most of the Indian subcontinent and parts of Europe by 2020 to complete its ‘caliphate’. The Caliphate is the geographical portion of the world the ISIS sees as the Islamic world and hence they want to take over all of what they see as the Islamic world. Once they have their Caliphate (An Islamic empire that aims to unite Muslims under a single religious and political entity), they plan to turn against the rest of the world. The ISIS proclaims the Caliphate will survive and prosper until it takes over the entire world and beheads every last person that rebels against Allah. It is not just is a group of jihadis fighting but is trying to set up a state and rule it. It’s no longer a group, it’s a political machinery. It occupies foreign territories and sets up its own laws and governs them.

The ISIS goals vis-a-vis achievements:

The 7 step ISIS program dating almost 15 years back, includes the United States being provoked into declaring war against Iraq between 2000-2003, an uprising against Arab rulers between 2010-2013 and taking control of Syria between 2012- 2015. By now you must have realized that there is a 100% achievement of their goals and that is why they have to be taken seriously. They have joined hands with several other terror groups including Al Qaida and Boko Haram.

Their recruitment drive is on the rise since last few years in which they were able to recruit 25000 people including young girls and children below 15 years of age selling their propaganda over social media. They take due advantage of the internal indifferences of other territories and lure the youth to join them showcasing their power and radical thoughts often posted on you tube videos by these hi-tech terror group. These brutal videos of beheading of men, new ways of killings, slavery of women etc. are barbaric to the core. The group publishes an online magazine “Dabiq” which aims at recruiting Jihadist from the west.

The Plague: Rising Power of ISIS:-

The leader of the group Abu Bakr Al- Baghdadi transformed the ISIS from a terrorist group into a real army with operational discipline, an articulated organization, and efficient funding mechanisms. The ISIS has gained much of its power by capturing of modern day war weapons and US Tanks in Syria which were provided bu US to the Syria security forces. It earn millions of dollars on a daily basis by illegally exporting oil to other nations making them the richest terror group in the world. At present they are in control of most parts of Iraq and Syria as well as parts of Libya.

ISIS- The Barbarians:-

The ISIS beheading videos receives million of views over internet. They showcase new ways of killings in those videos. The law followed by the group is called the Sharia Law. Under ‘Sharia’ law women are treated as slaves and are sold or gifted to militants for their achievements. Rape is very common and natural wherein the fighters pass on the girls to another after raping them. Women are seen being sold openly in the market place with price tags on them. 

Here are few ISIS terrifying laws:

·         Rival, political and armed groups are banned.

·         Apostasy is punishable by death.

·         The punishment of drinking alcohol is 80 whips in public.

·         The punishment of spying is beheading.

·         Stealing results in amputation of limbs.

·         People practicing homosexuality are thrown from top of buildings.

·         A group of more than 5 people are not allowed to assemble.

·         The punishment of adultery is to stone the married person to death and 100 whips to the single.

Is ISIS a threat to India?

It pose a serious threat to India down the line as it seems to have special plans against India. Moreover attacking India is considered as the Holy Grail for ISIS. The group has a grand ambition to ignite an attack in India thereby provoking US to support and finally a global war. There are several arguments as how this can only be a far fetched idea and also very much possible given their achievements.

ISIS might have a different strategy against India. Who would have thought they will achieve their first two goals which seemed far-fetched a decade before but they very well succeeded. The ISIS kidnapped bio chemical engineers and recruited several experts who will help them to prepare deadly weapons and explosives such as “Ebola Bombs’ and Bio Chemical Explosives. ISIS now controls Iraq, Syria, Libya and is trying land their feet and increase their strength in Afghanistan. They are at present provoking the Taliban rebels to fight and occupy Pakistan in the next few years which is very much on the cards given the combined strength of 4 nations if they succeed. To my understanding their invasion will involve tens of thousands of Taliban rampaging Pakistan towards India, grabbing the ‘Islamic Bomb’ on the way, and shooting its nuclear payload across the Wagah border. That would be quite a feat. 

However given the current situation wherein Russia is fighting the ISIS it seems a big bust.  It’s highly unlikely that the ISIS will do a Syria in India. The Indian army is one of the most powerful army in the world unlike Iraq and Syria. It has the highest standing army in the world who have the expertise to fight in different terrains. The Indian army has been fighting terror groups both within and along the borders since decades and knows their job. Moreover India is nuclear country. India has arrested few sympathizers with this group. Recently a 21 year old boy from Maharashtra who joined ISIS and fought against Syria has returned India. Thanks to Indian Govt. who repeatedly have had success getting back the Indians from the hands of ISIS, be it the 39 nurses or several other working individuals in Syria and Libya. The Indian government has a high alert for the ISIS threat and monitoring the situation quite well. PM Narendra Modi was seen aggressively speaking against ISIS in the UN meeting concluded recently.

But it’s high time this 7^th century cult group should be forced to taste their own medicine who are on a demonic roll of spades. If anybody on the earth deserves the west’s lethal force it’s the ISIS. Delaying a real counteroffensive against the ISIS only empowers them. The ISIS threat is a global threat and that is why there should be a combined mission to destroy ISIS and destroy them now!!

AIB KNOCK-OUT: YOU ARE OFFENDED?? SERIOUSLY???

I was going through the news columns today and what caught my attention was the most talked about show recently “The AIB Knock-out- Roast of Ranveer Singh & Arjun Kapoor” which is labelled as the filthiest, coolest and rudest show.

The point is not everybody found the AIB Video funny. There has been outrage and many found it offensive. A TV channel lashed out at the AIB group using not-so-great adjectives which forced the govt. to probe an enquiry.

Some people take offences like it’s a limited time offer. Well nobody has the right to not to be offended.

The Video clearly said: - “Following the video is filthy, rude and offensive”.

If you are offended it’s your problem and frankly lots of things offends lots of people. You can walk into a book store and come across a number of books you will find unattractive in what they say. But I guess it doesn't occur to you to burn the book store down. If you don’t like a book, read another book. If you start reading a book and you decide you don’t like it, nobody is asking you to finish it. But to read a 500 page novel and then say it has deeply offended you: well, you have done a lot of work to be offended.

The offended include Akhilesh Tiwari (President of Brahman Ekta Seva Sanstha), Anil Kapoor, Vinod Tawde (Cultural Affairs Minister) & Krishna Hegde (Congress MLA).

@ Akhilesh Tiwari: - His three you tube videos of mata ki chowkis organized by him last year had 21, 6 & 8 views respectively. And then there is AIB Knockout, with a million views in about 12 hours. It’s got to hurt.

@ Anil Kapoor: - Anything designed to be inoffensive isn’t worth your time- Life itself is pretty offensive, ending as it does with death. Hence, be a sport.

Now coming back to the AIB Video, An hour of abuse among themselves generated 40 L INR for charity.

I feel, there should be a law which prevents people from wasting police’s time with mundane matters. Why is it so important to preserve this so- called clean image of Indian culture and women? Who decides what is moral and what is decent? And what sort of lives do these people who pose as being moral, lead themselves? My dear readers, we shouldn’t forget that we are in the native land of hypocrites. Meanwhile politicians can get away giving hate speeches. Anyways, AIB have a long way to go before they can even hope to give competition to Indian politicians.

If you are clearly looking for statements made in public that damage the clean image of India, there’s much more. Here are some samples.

TMC’s Tapas Pal: - "Boys will go and rape women on my command".

Mulayam Singh Yadav: - "Boys will be boys"!!

Parveen Tagodia of VHP: - "Muslims should be evicted forcibly and their properties should be taken over".

Ajit Pawar, Deputy CM: - His response to a draught hit farmer who was on a 55 day hunger strike was “ He has been fasting for 55 days now, if there is no water in the dam, should we urinate into it? If there is no water to drink, even urination is not possible”

I have an advice for those who found the video offensive. Guys, look into the mirror!! Don’t just go around pretending to be the upholders of your own prescribed moral values. Don’t like something, don’t watch it!! As simple as that.

No offence given, none taken

-Jay