Taking a cue from #Harsha Bhogle. I was the only girl in my group that actively watched cricket. I went to the Feroze Shah Kotla stadium for my first cricket match when I was 3. I woke up at 4 AM, got ready for school and sat in front of the TV when India won the world series in Australia.

Over the years I have heard Harsha Bhogle’s commentary. After India’s win at Brisbane, I was listening to Harsha again. Something he said, stuck with me and instantly #resonated.

Harsha said “I felt like I was 200 years old and felt the weight of a generation on my shoulders”. I felt like constantly telling the young Indian team “Just Block, Don’t Lose”. The young team did not have any of the baggage that Harsha carried. They had no fear and played without a script. The result was for all of us to see.

#Lesson for me:

As senior managers/leaders, we often impose our views, fears, #mindconditioning on the younger members of the team. The intent is to guide but the result is curtailing natural instincts and enthusiasm.

Youth brings fresh thought, exuberance, enthusiasm that needs to be #channelized, not curtailed.

Hindsight is always 20-20. Are you often left with the feeling: “I had predicted this outcome, I wish the others had listened to me”. You might be a victim of the #hindsightbias.

If we look at the cause of the 2008 crash, several analysts will now say “the reasons were obvious“(in hindsight). However, very few people actually predicted the crash.

Experts claim today that the world was ripe for a #pandemic, given the way we live. NO one that I know of really thought anything like this was likely.

If someone unlikely cleared a set of competitive exams or didn’t clear them; there will be a host of people that will stake claim to the #prediction:

1. “I always knew he would make it” or 

2. “I knew he was a loser”

depending on which way the final outcome went.

This is dangerous. You feel you are a better predictor than you actually are. That can #distortdecision making.

How do we avoid the #hindsightbias?

Keep a diary. Write down which way you feel things are likely to go. Then compare it to the actual outcome!!!!!

Most of us see ourselves as good people without biases. The reality however, is very different. People are good but have biases

Linda is 31 years old, single, outspoken, and very bright. She majored in philosophy. As a student, she was deeply concerned with issues of discrimination and social justice, and also participated in anti-nuclear demonstrations. Which is more probable?

1. Linda is a bank teller.

2. Linda is a bank teller and is active in the feminist movement.

#AmosTversky & #DanielKahneman in their landmark work in 1983 asked participants to solve this problem. More than 80% participants chose option 2, regardless of whether they were novice, intermediate or expert statisticians, even though the mathematical probability of Linda being both a bank teller and a feminist activist is much lower than the probability of her being a bank teller alone.

This example demonstrates how our brain makes connections where none exist: the #conjunctionfallacy.

We also have an #inherentbias that detailed statements are more likely than general ones.

There has been criticism on this problem. It remains one of the earliest & most well-known examples of the way our brain interprets information, makes connections & deduces things about people.

We automatically assume that technology can’t possibly have biases. Only humans have biases. Let’s examine this proposition.

In 2017 Google announced their speech recognition had a 95% accuracy rate. However, voice-activated searches still carry gender biases.

Meredith Whit taker,director of the AI Now Institute at New York University, noted that voice-recognition tools that rely on AI often don’t recognize higher-pitched voices. These mainly belong to women. The systems are not as well equipped to interact with women as with men.

Research by Rachael Tatman from the University of Washington indicated that Google’s speech recognition is 13% more accurate for men than it is for women.

Why do we see these results?

Tech is very male-dominated. Recent studies found:

             1. 18% of authors at leading AI conferences are women

            2. 80% of AI professors are men, globally.

            3. Women comprise only 15% of AI research staff at Facebook &10% at Google.

Technologies often reflect the gender biases in society& the lack of diversity in the design teams

Designers and software architects have their own biases & these are reflected in the way they create & train the technologies they work on

Source: “Sway” by Pragya Agarwal

Are you a habitual procrastinator? Did you know your brain is designed to help you #procrastinate…its not all your fault?

We often experience time having “run-away”, especially as we approach a deadline. Simultaneously, an internal voice tells us, we had enough time to comfortably finish the task, had we stuck to the plan.

Even though our #rationalmind swears, this is the last time this will happen…the story repeats itself. Why?

#neurosciencestudies have shown, the brain doesn’t like unpleasant tasks. It will take the easier option whenever possible. When faced with such situations, it sends out #painsignals to the body, just like when you are physically injured. This signal persuades you to #procrastinate and put off unpleasant/difficult tasks/

So what is #the solution: make your brain a friend.

How?

#Discipline yourself to take the start difficult tasks. Once the 1st step is completed, the brain stops sending the pain signal. This will ease #internalresistance. Additionally there is a “high” generated after #task completion. This energy helps to complete remainder tasks.

#learning: schedule the most difficult/unpleasant tasks in the morning. Your brain will let you finish the rest as per plan.

What #competencies do organizations look for when #hiringleaders? I recently read an article which quoted statistics based on a survey done across 2500 executives in leadership positions.

70% of leaders surveyed rated collaboration&high #EQ as highly as strategy when hiring leaders for their teams.

Recently a senior executive being considered for the position of a CEO was turned down because he was running late & was very rude to the driver that had come to pick him up for the job interview.

Organizations are increasingly looking for traits like #empathy & # humility. Gone are the days when organizations looked for the Archetype A leader that was aggressive. More than even skills&experience, organizations are looking for leaders that are collaborative, accept their #weaknesses & look to #leveragingteammembers strengths

In the drive to achieve results in the short term, some organizations may overlook senior leaders riding roughshod over the emotions of team members, however this trend definitely changing.

Confirming this trend is the increasing number of programs we conduct on #emotionalintelligence and #collaboration

Slowly the value of controlling one’s emotions, demonstrating #emotionalintelligence & being #empathetic are emerging as competencies that companies prefer in their leaders.

When the 75 members of Stanford Graduate School of Business’s Advisory Council were asked to recommend the most important capability for leaders to develop, their answer was nearly unanimous: #Selfawareness.

The mind is the instrument through which we view the world. Paradoxically, it also stops us from viewing ourselves objectively & discovering our #blindspots.

I came across this #interestinganecdote about David Pottruck, ex-CEO of Charles Schwab. Always a high achiever, David completing his MBA at Wharton, worked with the Citi group & joined Charles Schwab as head of marketing.

An extremely hard worker, David couldn’t understand why his new colleagues resented the long hours he put in & his aggressiveness in pushing for results. It never occurred to him that his level of energy would intimidate &offend other people. In his mind he was trying to help the company.

David was shocked when his boss told him, that his colleagues didn’t #trust him.The#feedback hit him hard. He didn’t see himself as others saw him, as self-serving. On reflection, the feedback resonated as true.

David realized that he couldn’t succeed unless he identified & overcame his blind spots.

It takes tremendous courage&constant effort to increase #selfawareness. It is however the hallmark of a #leader!!!

Some results of the survey conducted by #Fortune surveying 500 CEO’s are shown on this infographic. It throws up some #interestingconclusions and #possibleinsights.

1. Just over 50% felt that #economicactivity will be restored only by Q1 2022

2. Around 50% felt that #businesstravel will never come back to pre-pandemic levels

3. 75% feel the pandemic will accelerate #technologicaltransformation

4. A quarter of CEO’s felt that 90% of the workforce will never come back to their #originalplaceofwork

5. Slightly less than 50% had no #layoffs

6. 50% have agreed to a cut in #compensation

7. One-third felt that #capitalspending would return to 2019 levels by 2021

Our world is currently experiencing unprecedented turmoil, which looks set to continue for the next couple of years.

We often can’t control the external environment, what we can control is the way we respond to the environment, internally.

My personal experiences have shown me, whenever I approach a situation with #hope and #optimism, the external environment mirrors the same!!!!!!!

#shradhahrd #learningandevelopment #softskillstraining

Are we losing the #empathy and #patience to listen and respond? A recent incident which plays out regularly at the workplace got me thinking.

An elderly uncle who is nearing 80 was on a call with the customer care of his bank to change his net banking password. He works on the computer but takes longer than most of us would to perform routine functions.

The process to change the password was a complicated one. The executive online was constantly proddingmy uncle to work faster. He was very politely telling him to be patient. Seeing my uncle getting upset, my daughter took over the operation and completed it.

This incident set me thinking. We see similar situations all around us. How can we #makeit easier?

My learnings from the interaction

1.Recognize there is another perspective beyond your own: The executive had an SLA and wanted to finish the call quickly. It stopped him from viewing the situation objectively

2. Seek to understand, then be understood: If the executive had enquiredabout why the process was slow, he would have been able to deal with the situation better

3.Think about your actions: Our systems are often highly competitive and leave little room for the disadvantaged. We often blindly follow

4 strategies to #StayFocused If You’re Assigned to Multiple Projects Simultaneously

Most of us are juggling multiple projects with different teams at the same time. Switching attention between tasks takes time and saps focus and energy. Moving between teams, mostly requires you to adjust to different roles — you might be the boss on one but a junior member of another; each team has its own unique cultures which requires energy to handle.

How can you #managetime, stress & productivity if you’re on multiple teams?

1. Get the big picture. This will help#prioritize instead of using an ad-hoc approach. Most of us approach our work 1 day at a time instead of taking stock of the multiple projects that require our attention.

2. Sequence strategically:Pick one task and focus on it intensely, rather than juggling. Start with the task that requires the greatest concentration and give it your undivided attention.#Discipline here is critical.

 3. Protect yourself:When you’re focused on a high-priority task, block off unnecessary intrusions. You should only be disturbed if there is an emergency

4. Document &communicate progress: Keep #stakeholders informed of progress & #conflictinpriorities, if any. This builds trust & confidence

Last month, at Shradha HRD, we were designing a learning intervention for managers. One component of the module was the skills and behaviors that emotionally intelligent people display. We came across this question during our research.

There is an external vocabulary that can help you describe “the world well”. Then there is an vocabulary that can describe your emotions well. The difference is striking, even though we are speaking about vocabulary in both cases.

While interacting with teenagers, most experiences are “awesome”. A McDonalds burgers, a Professor, a movie and even a trip to the moon would all be categorized as “simply awesome”. The challenge here lies in our inability to correctly label our emotions while going through different life experiences. Emotional intelligence above all is the ability to be in touch with your own emotions. Are you happy, overjoyed or ecstatic. Moved, profoundly impacted or going through a life changing experience.

Building awareness around our own emotions helps us deal with our emotions better. Including anger, pain, depression and despondency !!!!

There is a little bagful of words that we carry around all the time, the one we often refer to as our Vocabulary. We replenish our wardrobes often, throwing out old shirts and dresses that no longer fit and add fresher ones that define us better with each growing year. But that little bag of words remains unchanged.  Years go by and we often hear ourselves saying the same words… “Oh that makes me so mad” “I feel bad” “I am so angry”… especially with our feelings, we tend to use very few and generic words to express how we feel.

While all of us experience a wide array of emotions, only a select few can accurately identify them and use the right words to express them. This capability of individuals to recognize their own emotions and those of others, discern between different feelings and label them is what is known as emotional Intelligence. Research shows that only 36 % of people have the words to do this.  Without the insights into exactly what we are feeling and without the right words to express them, we are binging on many problems. Unlabeled emotions often go misunderstood, which leads to irrational choices and counterproductive actions.

While many might describe themselves as simply feeling “bad,” emotionally intelligent people can pinpoint whether they feel “irritable,” “frustrated,” “disappointed” or “anxious.” The more specific your word choice, the better insight you have into exactly how you are feeling, what caused it and what you should do about it.Like the anecdotal angry career women profiled in the #shradhahrdblog#, Recognizing and identifying emotions is a prerequisite for developing emotional intelligence.

So growing our kitty of words, with feeling words and self awareness is just one of the five things we can do to be more emotionally Intelligent at the workplace. According to David Goleman there are 4 more- self regulation, intrinsic motivation,Empathy and Social Skills.  Developing these skills improves our Emotional quotient which plays a vital role in many everyday decisions we make at the work place, such as how  we deal with pressure,  decisions on promoting, hiring and firing employees and dealing with conflict and change.

Pack then a bag of feeling words and get on the long but rewarding journey of emotional intelligence.  It is a journey with 5 flagship places (as listed by David Goleman ) to visit. Strew with events and eventualities,you may find yourself trudging slowing, one word or thought at a time, but a journey that rewards with  better mental health, well being and career success.

I read an interview with Bill Gates published in the Times of India. 3 points stayed with me:

1. The importance of emotional intelligence for people in Leadership

2. People management skills are not correlated with Scientific IQ & may be negatively correlated

3. It is rare to find someone who combines Scientific skills with IQ

An excerpt:

TOI: Sometime ago, you gave a speech about how you once “overvalued intelligence”. Can you elaborate?

 BG:There’s a certain type of IQ where I can give you a 500-page book on meteorology and you read it and you understand how tornadoes work. I always admired people who were good at that, and I thought if you were good at that, then everything else is easy.

Managing people? Just use common sense. Understanding profit & loss? That’s just a little mathematical equation. “You’re a smart person. You know physics. Go manage this group.” I used to think. I was wrong about that.

The idea that some of these skills were not correlated with scientific IQ, in fact, some of them were negatively correlated, it took me a while to figure that out. Those who combine scientific IQ with people skills—like Satya –are rare. You have to learn to build a team with different capabilities & as Microsoft got bigger, it became more important.

#Selfawareness is the first step to emotionally intelligent behavior.

How self-aware are you?

Do you use the same words to describe your #emotions, most times?

If you have had a#difficultconversation, would you describe your current state of mind as “being upset”?

My teenage daughter uses the same word -“upset”, to describe several emotions. Angry, disappointed, frustrated and fearful would all be categorized as “I’m upset”.

We now sit together and delve further to discover what “upset”really means. We are now making some progress, where she has begun a journey to become more aware of her emotions& label them more accurately

This capability of individuals to recognize their own emotions and those of others, discern between different feelings and label them is what is known as #emotionalIntelligence. Research shows that only 36 % of people have the words to do this.

Research has also shown, the first step to dealing with emotions is to accurately identify them.

Step out of your skin & reflect on what you are feeling. If can view your emotions during a heated conversation and say “aaah…I can feel myself getting angry again”, it will immediately calm you down. It takes a little introspection and practice but gets better with time.

Try it..it really works!!!

98% of 6-year olds have Creativity scores at genius levels &only 12% of 15 year olds

In 1968, George Land (with Beth Jarman) conducted a research study to test the creativity of 1,600 children ranging in ages from three-to-five years old. This was the same creativity test he devised for NASA to help select innovative engineers and scientists.

The proportion of people who scored at the “Genius Level”

1. amongst 5 year olds: 98%

2. amongst 10 year olds: 30%

3. amongst 15 year olds: 12%

4. Same test given to 280,000 adults (average age of 31): 2%

According to Land, the primary reason for this is, there are 2 types of thinking processes when it comes to creativity:

Convergent thinking: where you judge ideas, criticise them and improve them, all of which happens in your conscious thought

Divergent thinking: where you imagine new ideas, original ones which are different from what has come, which often happens subconsciously

We teach children to try and use both kinds of thinking at the same time, which is impossible.
Competing neurons in the brain will be fighting each other, and it is as if your mind is having a shouting match with itself.

Land suggests we need to allow people to split their thinking processes into the various different states, to make each of them more effective.

If you want people to retain their ability and desire to be creative, encourage them to let their mind run free while they come up with ideas, and only afterwards to sit down, evaluate them and start working on the ones they think are the best.

How do you encourage creativity within your teams?

Cultural intelligence is an outsider’s seemingly natural ability to interpret someone’s unfamiliar and ambiguous gestures the way that person’s compatriots would.

Why does increasing your cultural quotient makes good business sense?

Most people who don’t really interact with clients outside India, believe increasing their cultural quotient is not important.

Research shows that we have a definite bias, conscious or unconscious towards people that are like us viz race, color, skin, values, traditions, age etc. This is well documented in the work done by Harvard Professors:

People with a common nationality or people from the same region tend to gravitate towards each other. Anyone that has lived or studied abroad will vouch for this. We see this phenomenon at the work place all the time: a shared cultural/regional heritage is usually a reason for immediate bonding.

Every home, every organization and every country has a distinct “culture”. If a person is more comfortable interacting with like minded people ie people with a similar age & education profile, socio-economic background and those that hold matching views, they find it difficult to work in a diverse e

If you see merit in embracing diversity and improving your cultural quotient, there are 3 simple strategies that will help:

1. Embrace diversity; not just tolerate it:Step out of your comfort zone & learn about other cultures. Travel to off-beat locations, talk with people that are different from you, make an effort to know those you have little in common with

2. Appreciate the reasons behind the customs and traditions. To outsiders, some customs and ways of functioning may seem odd because they see what is happening on the surface. They don’t know the reasons behind the tradition. Once you develop an

3. Suspend judgement: Become aware of differences&appreciate them. When we see life through our mind lens, we often look down on things that are different from the way we work.. We pass judgement and like or dislike things.

4. Be sensitive to the customs and traditions. Mirror them through your actions

Is consumption really an accurate measure of development or happiness?

The world over Growth & Development is measured by GDP, which is defined as the total monetary or market value of all the finished goods & services produced within a country’s borders in a year.

Roughly translated: the more we consume as a society, the more developed we are & corollary the happier we should be.

Bhutan has a different measure for Development: Gross National Happiness (GNH).

The 4 pillars of GNH are good governance, sustainable development, preservation & promotion of culture & environmental conservation.

Are the Bhutanese happier than the rest of the world? Is the Index a Political gimmick? This is debatable.

What is important is, there is the thought of moving away from “material consumption” as a measure of development. Economic development is critical but is it the only indicator of development?

Happiness is a function of how satisfied I am with what I have, not how much I consume.

If I look at how much I have, instead of how much I should have, it will definitely lead to happiness, everything else remaining the same, ceteris paribus.

The CEO of an infrastructure management company headquartered in the US had an interesting observation to make about his company culture. During a recent conversation with me, he said“2/3rd of our workforce is extremely conscious of hierarchy. They won’t question or voice opinions in front of seniors. The other one third is fairly egalitarian in their views. They stand up for their beliefs & question when required. This situation creates a disconnect within the organization”

What determines if a team member will blend into different cultures easily? 3 simple questions will determine the answer

1. Is the person motivated to learn about other cultures? Does he/she have a diverse circle?

2. Is the person able to suspend judgement while viewing differences in culture or is the person more comfortable with like-minded people?

3. Does the person mirror through actions the values &customs around them?

If the answer to these questions is “yes”, this person will find it fairly easy to blend into different cultures.

What are some steps you have taken to enhance your culture quotient?

I wish for the touch & feel of a live meeting with colleagues but was really impressed with the results from a virtual quarterly meet up of a Logistics company

I recently had a conversation with a C-suite executive from this company. He spoke about the tools they used for a recent meeting & how much they were able to achieve in a short period

Agenda: to decide new services to be added, address issues the company faced due to the Pandemic

1. Break out rooms to brainstorm: Each group was asked to come up with their ideas on how new services could be added to the current ecosystem

2. White board for ranking: All the ideas were plotted on a cost and potential benefit matrix. The combined group debated on where to place each idea on the grid. This helped narrow down the choice to 5 ideas

3. Polls for getting opinions: Instead of guessing what colleagues thought about the existing ideas, a poll was conducted to see where the majority opinion was

Within 2 hours the entire process of generating new idea, ranking them & getting final opinion on most suitable ideas was wrapped up.

I’m all for the human element but was impressed with the results accomplished in such a short span of time.