A hypothesis…if 100 monkeys speculated on the stock market for a week. They bought and sold stock like crazy…half would make a profit and half a loss. Then 50 continued, if we continued this iterative process, we would have a winner after 7 weeks. Lets say he’s the “success monkey”. We would look to find his “success principles”. How could the monkey get it right 7 weeks in a row?

Sounds strange, but its reality. We are often victims of the “outcome bias”.

In hindsight, if we look at the recent spurt in global oil prices, there is enough evidence to suggest, they would have. Some said they would go up and some said not. We need to examine what the predictions were based on? Was it just chance, the right answer was picked on or was there a clear rational thought behind it?

A bad result doesn’t mean a bad decision and vice versa. Instead of blaming yourself for a bad result or congratulating yourself for a coincidental success, remember…why did you choose what you did?

Were the reasons right and understandable? Then stick to your process…

Is there a mental cost of#WorkfromHome? Is permanent work from home desirable?In an interview with the New York Times,Microsoft CEO, Satya Nadella said that permanently working from home can be “damaging for social interaction and mental health for workers”.

This statement resonated with me.

While the current pandemic has made it necessary for us to Work from Home, communicate via video conferences, its not the same as the connect of a physical meeting.

I miss sitting around the lunch table with colleagues

I miss the “I’m glad the weekend is here” banter

I miss the 2 minute informal connect with clients before & after a meeting

I miss just the “#humanconnection” that comes with a physical workplace

Attending online classes for students is not the same as being at school or college. One of the nicest parts of growing up is being around friends at school.

Virtual classrooms are necessary in today’s times and can be a valuable tool to reach audiences at multiple locations. However, the richness of communication that emerges in a physical classroom cannot be ignored, especially while addressing competencies related to Personal transformation.

I personally feel, Work from Home is great in some situations BUT we need to balance it with the “social connect”,while deciding an optimal work mix!!

For true #brilliance in results, you can’t make a better version of an existing product. You need #originalthought as well as a “fresh approach”. The miracle that took place at Microsoft under Satya Nadella, bears testament to this fact

Under Ballmer, Microsoft  tried to copy everything Apple did.For every iPod, there was a Zune; for every iPad, a Surface tablet; for every iOS device, a Windows Phone.It also was tied to the core product: Windows.

Nadella started by selling PCs to corporate buyers. He later oversaw engineering for Bing, the company’s search engine, before taking over Azure.

Colleagues swear they’ve never seen him get upset, raise his voice, or fire off an angry email. Shelley Bransten, a Microsoft corporate vice president, suggests that what makes Nadella #unique is that he has “no swagger.”

Equally, he has been #adamant that the firm must move to cloud, compete head-to-head with Amazon’s AWS and ditch the Windows mentality.

Under Nadella, it cut funding to Windows and built an enormous cloud computing business, putting it ahead of Google and making progress in key areas against the dominant player, Amazon Web Services. “I don’t know of any other software company in the history of technology that fell onto hard times and has recovered so well,” says Reed Hastings, CEO of Netflix Inc.

Leading Indian patent holders say that inventions and innovations is a mind game. “I Can” is more important than IQ says Sandeep R Patil at IBM with 307 patents to his name. He says anyone can become an inventor, not just those in labs or those with high IQ. The invention process Sandeep says is psychological in nature. The key to invention is to train your mind to question the obvious:

1. Why does the clock move clockwise?

2. Why are manholes round?

Rajiv V Joshi with 267 patents, a technical lead from IBM says for idea generation you need to have observation capabilities. It’s a mind game that you have to conquer. There will be many adversities in the process but don’t give up. You will definitely succeed.

Sarabjit Rakshit with 705 patents, a data architect from IBM says that his ideas mostly come to him when he’s reading or watching tv, not consciously thinking about them. He makes a note of the idea, starts reflecting on it and then shares it with his teams if he feels there’s merit in it.

What does it take to have more than 100 patents to your name?

It’s rare for Indian Cricket fans to cheer a team that beat them in a World Cup. The reason is special. The New Zealand Cricket teams are known as the “nice guys of cricket”.

Due to their fair and positive style of playing they have become the world’s “second favourite team” (after the home team of course).

Leading from the front is the Captain, Kane Williamson who is arguably considered the best Captain in Cricket today:

1. He always has a smile on this face, even in defeat. He has always displayed great Sportsmanship (remember the 2019 World Cup final)

2. His team mates acknowledge him as a very intelligent cricketer (always a couple of overs ahead of the game)

3. As an individual contributor his batting scores have been outstanding(Williamson has the highest test average (65.74) in the last three years (minimum 1000 runs))

4.What he’s done for New Zealand cricket – not just his own performance,– but he’s taken everyone else with him, and their career numbers have improved, their performances have improved.

Sometimes nice guys do finish first…

For me, they always come first!!!

A truly amazing story of a Chennai based auto driver that gives lessons to large corporations like Vodafone, Hyundai and Ted X at IIT, on building customer loyalty, even in Covid times.

Annadurai hasn’t finished Class 12, looks like your average auto driver & can talk to you about anything- startups, innovations, the latest in the Economic Times.His auto has magazines, snacks, books, laptop, tablets, mini-television set &refreshing drinks. All these are no-cost services for his passengers.

Annadurai feels his education started when he started identifying & prioritising ideas to win over customers.He needed to be fantastic at observation & have extensive knowledge to strike up meaningful conversations .

Steps to build customer loyalty

1.Passengers feel irritated in traffic jams: the WiFi keeps them engaged

2.A customer urgently needed a laptop & Anndurai felt bad, not being able to help: he bought a laptop & tablet(led to social media selfies which in turn increased his customers)

3.People often didn’t always have change & sometimes they would forgo the money: he got a swiping machine.

4.Office growing crowd skipped breakfast: started the snack section comprising fruits, wafers, coconut water & more

5.Learnt to say hello in 9 languages & names of Hindi movies, scientists, famous places and sports

6.When the pandemic affected his earnings, he still gave free rides, masks & sanitisers to the needy.

The result

Average monthly income: Rs 1,18,000. He spends Rs 19,000 on products &services to keep customers happy.

Do you think it is important to grieve? I felt grieving kept us chained to the past& could even be self-indulgent at times. A recent conversation gave me a different perspective. A friend lost someone very dear, completely unexpectedly. She was grappling with the emotions of loss, pain, anger & sadness.

Those around her were encouraging her to get back on her feet, telling her she needed to focus onothers around her &she must spring back to her normal self.

And she said, “I know my duties, my responsibilities,but the others don’t know what I have lost. I cannot go back to life as though nothing has happened. I need to come to terms with this.”

I view myself as a pragmatic person. My mantra for dealing with pain is to forget the past & focus on the task at hand.

Somewhere during the conversation, a realization dawned; while trying to comfort those closest to us, we tell them to forget what’s happened, focus on the present&move on. The advice is well intentioned but may not be the best way to deal with this situation.

Grieving is part of the healing process. The mind needs to process what’s happened, work through it & then it will automatically move on.

Listening to someone, helping them talk through their feelings, just being there, might be a more effective way to help heal.

A 75 year old was being released from the hospital after undergoing treatment for Covid. On being presented an additional bill for Rs. 6,000 for an Oxygen cylinder that had been omitted, he burst into tears. His family rallied around him and said, costs don’t matter…

Here’s what he said next..

“I’m not crying because I have to pay the extra money, I’m crying because of the debt I have to pay to nature for the 75 years of free Oxygen that I have used.”

We take for granted, so much that is given to us. Its life changing moments like this that bring a realization of how much we “have”.

The emotion of Gratitude doesn’t change the situation we are in but it certainly changes the way we look at the situation.

Is your glass half empty or half full?

This is an amazing story of a young 21year old, who achieved the milestone of keeping his village Covid free. To me this a story on #Leadershipskills and a #Cando attitude.

Ruturaj Deshmukh is the youngest Sarpanch in Maharashtra. Ghatne village has 1,500 inhabitants and not a single case of #COVID from March 2020 to April 2021.

How was this achieved?

Together with his team, Deshmukh took the following steps

1. Framed a 5-point programme involving tracing, testing, treatment, vaccination and adherence to COVID- appropriate behaviour.

2. Built awareness among people to remove hesitancy about COVID-19 testing

3. ASHA workers were roped in to visit every house and monitor blood oxygen level and temperature.

4. “Corona safety kits” comprising a face mask, hand sanitiser, disinfectant,&vitamin tablets, supplied

5.Residents that travelled outside for work were randomly tested while outsiders coming to the village quarantined

Ghatne gram panchayat is planning to set up a 20-bed isolation centre and a paediatrics task force with two doctors in the village.

His vision: to make Ghatne the first fully #vaccinated village in Solapur.

Why do managers have #favorites? To find the answer to this question, ask yourself a completely unrelated question: who are the people closest to you? Are they #similar to you or completely different? 9 times out of 10, we are closest to people that are like us: in demographics, outlook and often even behavior patterns.

As managers we display the same behaviors. We gravitate towards people that are like us and away from people that are different from us. There is a bias “towards” some team members and a bias “against” some team members. Sometimes this is a #consciousbias and sometimes it is happens, even without our knowing it: #unconsciousbias.

#Biases were possibly created when #primitiveman was in the jungles. His tribe were people that were #like him and were to be trusted. The others were not to be trusted and kept at a distance. This was necessary at that time, for survival.

Our survival isn’t at stake,however we have retained the same behavior patterns!!!!

How does one #removebiases?

1.Pay close attention to your inherent biases: likes and dislikes

2.Actively look to work with people that are different from you

3.Be objective; not governed by likes and dislikes

Are you able to put yourself under the microscope and view the #biases that exist?

Ask yourself these 3 questions to check if you are an #empatheticinterviewer? A recent conversation with a young lawyer,about a job interview led to an insight on how interviewers can add to the “interview experience”

The #interviewee had an upcoming interview with a Tier 1 law firm. Despite having the necessary qualifications and experience, he had been unable to clear his last 3 interviews.

He reached out to me before his interview and revealed he was a #nervousinterviewee. His ask: “what should I say/not say during the interview so that I have a better chance of being selected?”

Over the years #ShradhaHRD has been involved with several interventions on #effectiveinterviewing and I did share my perspective on what an interviewee needs to do to showcase his/her profile.

A thought stayed with me for a couple of days; what can interviewers do to improve the process, beyond the general hygiene factors:

The #solution:

1.Do I do enough to make the interviewee comfortable? (this will vary based on nervousness levels)

2.Do I ask the interviewee the right questions to showcase his/her profile? (will need to be customized)

3. And FINALLY…did I give the interviewee feedback on their profile/interview? (if this is done, it genuinely helps interviewees and demonstrates empathy)

Do women get better returns on #FinancialInvestments or men? I asked 20 people this question. 18 out of 20 people, said….Men. Data tells us differently. Survey results released by #ETMoney on International Women’s Day:

1. Women investors were found to be more #disciplined while investing

2. Better adherence to #assetallocation, based on age than men

3. Stick to a systematic investment plan better, as compared to men

4. Over a 4 year period, women recorded #betterreturns on investment than men

5. In 2020, a challenging year for investors globally, women recorded returns of 14% on average while men recorded returns of 11%

A large percentage of women I know (including serious career women), shy away from handling their finances (me included, till a couple of years ago). This survey gives a clear reason why, we as women should step up and get involved in our #financialplanning. For me it was a little bit of a comfort zone to leave the stress to someone else. Once I started, I found it liberating. There was a sense of taking control.

I believe each of us should take up tasks based on our core competence but till we don’t try, how do we know how good we can be.

To all the super talented & intelligent women I know: stretch your #comfortzone and step up!!!!!!

Can small symbolic steps actually make a difference to #empowerwomen? A recent incident tells me it’s possible. We only need to have the intellect to think out of the box and the heart to follow through on it.

A powerful lesson in #womenempowerment through a small yet powerful step taken by the Panchayat in Chhattisgarh’s Durg District. Something not seen even in the most progressive metro’s societies.

All 850 houses in the Patora district now have a name plate with the head woman’s name of their family. This was done to mark the occasion of #InternationalWomen’s Day. The village Panchayat resolved that women will be empowered when they are given acknowledgement for all the work they do.

The Panchayat representatives felt, women play the role of the real head of the hose, yet it is the male head’s name mentioned on the nameplate. The men of the village were also very happy with the decision. They said men and women run the family together and most household decisions are taken by women. Women should also be given #respect as head of the household and this is a strong step to strengthen them.

Which leads me to the all-important #question…what are the small yet powerful steps we can take to #acknowledge the contribution of women & help them reach their #potential?

New Zealand’s Prime Minister May Be the Most Effective Leader on the Planet. 39 year old Jacinda Ardern’s leadership style, focused on empathy, isn’t just resonating with her people; it’s putting the country on track for success against Covid-19.

Helen Clark, New Zealand’s former prime minister says: New Zealanders might think “Well, I don’t quite understand why [the government] did that, but I know she’s got our back. There’s a high level of trust and confidence in her because of that empathy.”

One of Ardern’s innovations has been Facebook live chats that are informal, informative. During a session just as New Zealand prepared to go on lockdown, she appeared in a well-worn sweatshirt at her home (she had just put her toddler daughter to bed, she explained) to offer guidance “as we all prepare to hunker down.”

She sympathized with how alarming it must have been to hear the “loud honk” that preceded the emergency alert messages all New Zealanders had just received informing them that life as they knew it was temporarily over.

She justified severe policies with practical examples: She said, she knows as a parent it’s really hard to avoid playgrounds, but the virus can live on surfaces for 72 hours.

Leadership lessons from a successful woman leader: empathy and communication that connects.

Do we really pay attention to #educatingeducators? When I was in school and college, I often wished that someone would educate our educators. I regularly thought about how the same lecture/topic could be made more interesting. That’s part of the reason I gravitated towards the learning and development domain.

I’m glad to see there’s serious thought going into this area now. On #InternationalWomen’sDay, we ran a webinar series for 1500 Women educators from a large Education Technology company. The theme was “Move Up”: helping women break their self-imposed constraints and boundaries, brand themselves more effectively and stand up to be counted.

One of our favorite themes at Shradha HRD: #Womensupportingwomen!!!!!

The feedback for the session came through a rather interesting route. A colleague has a daughter that takes classes with the same company. She logged into her regular session 10 min late and apologized for the delay. Our colleague asked, “You were attending the Move Up program?”. She explained she knew about the program because her company,#ShradhaHRD was conducting the webinar. The educator said, “Maam I just could not leave the session, it was so good” !!!

Comments like this lend more meaning to our work.

Why do 85% Indian Women miss out on raises, promotions? Sheryl Sandberg, the COO of Facebook said that women are unlikely to get to CXO level positions. The reason she gave, took my breath away; ITS BECAUSE THEY DON’T ASK FOR IT!!!

Seryl spoke of an interesting incident while she was at college that explained this phenomenon. Sheryl, her friend Carry (research scholar) and her brother (sportsman) took a class on European Intellectual History. The girls read all the books and attended most lectures, while her brother hardly attended any classes and read 1 book. 3 days before the exam he walked upto the 2 ladies and asked for help.

Walking out of the exam, Sheryl and Carry were stressed about the finer points they had left out in the exam and her brother said..”I got top grade”; this is without knowing about the paper !!!!

Research shows that Women systematically underestimate their abilities.

Even in the US, 57% men will negotiate salaries on their first job and only 7% women. This explains to a large extent why women don’t get the salary hikes, the promotions and the designations they deserve.

To all the beautiful talented women I know….Choose your priorities based on your values. All women don’t need to aspire for the top job…but don’t sell yourself short.

Taiwan, Iceland, New Zealand, Germany, Finland, Norway, Denmark currently have 2 things in common: a woman Head of State & an outstanding response to the pandemic.

1. Angela Merkel-Germany: stood up early & told her countrymen that this was a serious bug that would infect up to 70% of the population.

2. Tsai Ing-wen-Taiwan. In Jan 2020 she introduced 124 measures to block the spread without having to resort to lockdowns

3. Jacinda Ardern-New Zealand: imposed self-isolation on people entering New Zealand, when there were just 6 cases in the whole country&banned foreigners from entering soon after

4. KatrínJakobsdóttir-Iceland: offered free corona virus testing and instituted a thorough tracking system that means they haven’t had to lock down or shut schools.

5. Sanna Marin-Finland: world’s youngest head of state elected. She used social media influencers as key agents in battling the coronavirus crisis.

6. Erna Solberg-Norway: used television to talk directly to children. She held a dedicated press conference & responded to kids’ questions, taking time to explain why it was OK to feel scared.

Women are told to behave more like their male counterparts to be effective leaders. I feel by being authentic & playing to their strength, these women leaders have come out ahead and been trailblazers.

A powerful lesson for us !!!

Why does the last biscuit in the jar make your mouth water? While helping a friend find a house, I witnessed an interesting technique to “close the sale”. On 3 different occasions when my friend showed interest in a house, the real estate agent called her within 2 days & said, “someone else put an offer for the house. If we don’t make an offer now, we might lose it”.

What intrigued me was my friend’s reaction. Each time the real estate agent called, her interest in the aforementioned property went up a couple notches. As an objective bystander, I remained unaffected after the 1st call (I must admit, I was taken in the 1st time too) but it worked on my friend (who was more involved)

All of us fall for the “scarcity syndrome” at some point. When we are deprived of an option, we suddenly deem it more attractive.

1. Children fight over trivial objects viz marbles when they are in short supply

2. At a crowded sale, we buy things that we wouldn’t normally buy because it’s the last set

3. Ask game enthusiasts how much more valuable PS-5 has become because its in short supply

A typical response to scarcity is a lapse in clear thinking!!

The solution:

Assess products &services, only on their price&benefits. Not on if they are fast disappearing

When did you fall for the scarcity syndrome?

Do you think it is important to grieve? I felt grieving kept us chained to the past& could even be self-indulgent at times. A recent conversation gave me a different perspective. A friend lost someone very dear, completely unexpectedly. She was grappling with the emotions of loss, pain, anger & sadness.

Those around her were encouraging her to get back on her feet, telling her she needed to focus on others around her &she must spring back to her normal self.

And she said, “I know my duties, my responsibilities,but the others don’t know what I have lost. I cannot go back to life as though nothing has happened. I need to come to terms with this.”

I view myself as a pragmatic person. My mantra for dealing with pain is to forget the past & focus on the task at hand.

Somewhere during the conversation, a realization dawned; while trying to comfort those closest to us, we tell them to forget what’s happened, focus on the present&move on. The advice is well intentioned but may not be the best way to deal with this situation.

Grieving is part of the healing process. The mind needs to process what’s happened, work through it & then it will automatically move on.

Listening to someone, helping them talk through their feelings, just being there, might be a more effective way to help heal.