CSR: Learn not Teach

One of my sons has come of the age when he has to make the choice to study further or plunge into the world of business. So far he has been a good son, an outstanding student and a very responsible citizen of the world. His teachers at the Ateneo de Manila University do take note of his performances and they have rewarded him with the right accolades and scholarships too. In life, he seems poised correctly to take off from being a good boy to a man to be respected. I take pride in this fact but claim no credit. As far as I am concerned, he is a self-made man already.

While driving about town, sometimes, we have healthy conversations about business, politics, social issues, life and about living gracefully. I must confess that I, more often than not, pick up more lessons than I think I give out.

One particular Sunday morning, just a week after I made a presentation at the Asian Forum on Corporate Social Responsibility [CSR] in Manila, I was telling him about how people across the world are waking up to the realities of the rampage we have created, in the guise of development and growth, we have created on earth. I was also telling him how happy I was that thousand of individuals and organizations in the know are now doing the right thing by healing the earth, nurturing the needy and educating the ones not in the know. “People,” I said, “are essentially good, and when given the freedom and the resources will most likely do the right and the noble thing.” I was happy, I said, that many large business groups do not regard the concept of CSR just as marketing and a business strategy but more as a way of life. On other occasions most of our conversations had been, of course, about developmental work and study opportunities in the USA or Europe for him. His city of choice, to live, work and or study, he’d mentioned many a times to me, was San Francisco. Today, he just sat and heard me out quietly.

A few days after that one-sided chat, we were back in the car again.

“Pa,” he said “there’s this professor at school who was telling us about this developmental assignment in one of the remote provinces in the Philippines.”

“What about it?”

“It’s an eighteen month teaching assignment for high-school level kids in a village where there is no electricity and potable water.”

“And?”

“Well, I am seriously considering taking it up.”

Without thinking and very carelessly, I blurted out, “Why?”

Allowing no pause and with a quick frown on his good-looking face, he exploded, “What do you mean, why?”

That shut me up good for the rest of the drive. Again, instead of teaching, I’d learned. Likewise for CSR, I realized I need to learn not teach, do and not talk, live it and not just employ it as a business strategy.

Innovation Factory

Meeting up with Robert Tucker in Manila was a pleasure. Comparing notes, getting insights and drawing sensible conclusions about creativity and innovation has usually been a slippery process. Every single individual and every single industry have ideas of their. Robert shared the concept of his Innovation Factory and I walked away with three major conclusions.

One: One Size Doesn’t Fit All
Idea generation, capturing possibilities and executing that flux may all be logged in and read as that we must think out of the box and we must stretch our minds but how far individual ideas can be stretched is totally made to order and custom designed. You got to come up with a process that works for you. What worked for Google, Starbuck, 3M, Evian and even Mang Inasal may not work for you. You will have to mix your own.

Two: Execution is Key
None of the names mentioned would have known how wonderful their ideas were had they not taken them to market. Out in that nebulous territory called the “market” roam beasts and beauties of undefined shape and size. You may research, reason, position, plan and strategize but it will only be the results that will give you a true reflection and a report.

Three: Make your Approach Methodical
In essence, when you mix your own, make sure you keep track of the ingredients you use, the measures you use and how long each individual process stays on the burner of intention and focus.

I like to think in terms of preparing, persisting, percolating and performing towards creating something out of nothing. Towards making new what doesn’t work well and even what may be working perfectly well at this time.

I had the opportunity to peek into how Kraft comes up with new products, process and promotions for their products. They partner, they purchase, they persist but way before they do all that they prepare to come up with something new. Their work areas are colourful, spacious and laid out to trigger ideas and teamwork. They nurture their research and development teams with volumes of select information; they are exposed to new theories and methods of thinking and action.

All this leads to products that are yummy, a presence in the market-place that is unshaken-able and a perch where Kraft, always, gets a glimpse of the curves ahead.

Five Sensible Ideas for Meetings

The whole world is constantly participating in meetings. “Let’s have a meeting,” “I am in a meeting,” “Call you right back after the meeting,” are statements you hear all the time. Sometimes, it makes me wonder if most everyone I know is so often in one meeting or another who then, in heaven’s name, is minding the, proverbial, store? Who is building the bridges and who is baking all the bread in the world?

The truth is that a lot of time, across the world, is being wasted in and during meetings. Should we be able to capture all the wasted energy from the din and noise generated during meetings then we would have no energy crisis. We’d be cutting down lesser trees, digging up lesser oil and, leaving lesser carbon foot-prints on the face of this lovely planet. The air will be clean, the oceans will start cooling down and the birds will start flying south again.

A typical meeting usually starts late and it involves catching up with others, waiting for the late-comer, listening to his excuses and a traffic-report of the city, bringing him up to speed, ordering coffee, re-reading the minutes of the last meeting, plugging the computers, logging onto the net and rushing through the true agenda so as to catch up with the next meeting at another venue.

If this is even partially true for you then here are five quick ideas to bash up the beast of bad meetings. Five ideas is a good number because it represents the number of sensory inputs and outputs and research in the field of neurosciences has shown that the conscious mind can only juggle and manage seven plus minus two chunks of information at a given moment. With nine chunks of data we are at peak performance therefore stressed. With seven we perform at medium stress but at five chunks we are relaxed, participative and also creative.

Idea One: Email everyone, a substantial time before the meeting, a five-point agenda that is more illustrative than narrative. Use sketches, diagram and flowcharts because pictures are easier to remember than words. Assign expectations and tasks for that individual. Keep it simple and to the point.

Idea Two: During the meeting issue a little more detailed version of the same illustration to everyone with their roles and tasks color segregated. Allow space for that individual to make and takes notes. Look up Edward De Bono’s ‘Six Thinking Hats’ and use the science behind that. Throw out one of the hats or use it as a pan to collect penalties from the late-comers, the hecklers and the time-wasters in meetings.

Idea Three: Choose one big, hairy goal for the meeting and less than four minor goals to be achieved as outcomes of the meeting. Hang a large sign of the big, hairy goal where everyone can see it before and during the meeting. The large visual aids focus and like bees to honey everyone will keep directing their conversations to the big, hairy goal. The minor ones will fall in place just like dominoes do.

Idea Four: Allow a few minutes before the meeting ends to make a bonfire out of the big, hairy goal sign and the small illustrative notices that you sent out. Capture the outcomes of the meeting in an illustrative format and sketch out the measures and the big hairy goal for the next meeting. Oops, scratch out the last sentence! Your every meeting should be like you’ll never have to meet again.

Idea Five: All research, option generation, plans, milestones, measures are elements of cerebral thinking but true choices are made from the depths of our hearts. Treat each other with respect, kindness and empathy so as to nurture their emotional sides but let the late-comers, the time-wasters and hecklers be pirated by the competition.

Practice these five ideas if you like or chuck them out the window. It is best to just roll up your sleeves and bake that bread, build those bridges or chill by the beach.

Here’s hoping your meetings are always lean, mean and the coming year happy, healthy and wealthy for you!

Author, Coach and Trainer
Raju Mandhyan

While Speaking Where Do I Put My Hands

Have you ever watched Asian dancers from India, Indonesia, Japan, or Thailand? They have these exotic dance routines where the story behind the dance is beautifully and eloquently expressed through the movement of limbs backed up by facial expressions. You may have also seen people communicate through graceful hand movements and expressions. These dances and sign languages can be mesmerizing to watch because they create such clear images.

Most of us, especially those who are high on auditory learning, are not so proficient with using our hands. In reality, hand gestures are very powerful and effective visuals. Imagine the impact of hitting your fist into an open palm when insisting upon a point. Imagine the effect of placing your right hand on your heart while talking about personal things, and imagine the honesty expressed when you spread open both your palms towards your audience. With appropriate gestures, you can increase impact and enhance connectivity with the audience.

Here are some pointers on how to keep your gestures natural, effective and in sync with your words:

• Start with hands loosely held over your belly-button area, prayer style.
• Visualize your head and your body down to your waist level enclosed in an imaginary frame like a photograph. Work your gestures from within that framework. Any gestures that go out of the frame will appear loud and sometimes impolite.
• Do not point your index finger at the audience. No! You are not Uncle Sam that says, “I want you” with a scowl on his face and his index finger pointing! Instead use an open, upward facing palm.
• Let your hand movements be in sync with your words. When you say “big” raise your hands high. When you say “small” lower your hands with palms facing downwards.
• When you want to convey excitement rub your hands together or close them into a grip, lean forward slightly and emote expressions.

All through managing your body language, your facial expression and your hand gestures do remember that mind and body are one linked system. What you feel and think in your mind will show through your body and actions and what you do with your body and movements will have an effect on your mind. Therefore, think and practice rhythm and grace during all public speaking interactions.

Beyond these suggestions, another very powerful thing I can tell you about hands and hand gestures is that, while speaking, focus so much more on the message and the audience that you become less and less conscious of making hand gestures. Because we communicate as a single mind-body linked system, our hand movements, inadvertently, represent our thoughts and many a times fill in and make up for lack of appropriate words.

In all cases, always relax, have fun and let your message provide meaning and value to your listeners.


Raju Mandhyan
Author, Coach and Trainer
Video Clip
www.mandhyan.com

A World of Clear, Creative and Conscientious Thinkers!
http://mandhyan.blogspot.com/
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Need to Bleed

Recently, in an interaction, with people from my profession, I got a bit peeved when someone began professing the value and importance of Corporate Social Responsibility as an image-building tool and as a marketing strategy. She was suggestiing that CSR practitioners pursue efforts in areas where it would give them higher exposure and visibility.

I was in a quiet rage for the next few days until I came by an article on the story Mayang. Mayang, a Filipina in Japan, who has been doing work for the community for years and not seeking recognition for it until it was gifted upon her.

Some of Mayang's words sit well with me and here they are, "...being successful is all about being humbled by the experience. Like palay [rice shoots] arches its body towards the ground when starting to bear grains," and "You put success in your heart, not in your head."

Read the whole article at ‘Bayaning Pilipino’ in Japan By Karlo Jose R. Pineda
Philippine Daily Inquirer
First Posted 08:30:00 10/26/2009

Creating Resonance

Many a times in my workshops on interpersonal communications, sales, negotiations, etc; I have stressed the importance of aligning our internal resources like our mood, our state of mind and most importantly our authentic agenda behind the conversation. I have also stressed, referring to the 55+38+7 percentage rule of Dr. Albert Mehrebian, the importance of body language, tonality and gestures. The 55+38+7percentage rule on impact and effectiveness states that of a 100% impact upon our listeners, 7% comes from words, 35% from tonality and other non-verbals and 55% from our total presence and body language.

Now this is only partially understood by many and completely misinterpreted by many a trainer and coach of interpersonal communications. When Dr. Mehrebian, originally, conducted studies on communication patterns the results of the studies were widely circulated in the press, in abbreviated form, leading to blithe acceptance and generalization of the outputs. Dr. Mehrabian’s research was to decipher the relative impact of facial expressions and spoken words. His subjects were asked to listen to a recording of a voice saying the single word “maybe” in three tonalities, to convey liking, disliking and neutrality. The subjects were then shown pictures of the faces conveying the same three emotions. Then subjects were asked to guess the emotions portrayed by the recorded voice, the pictures and both combined. The subjects’ assessment of the picture+voice drew more accurate responses. In another study, subjects listened to nine recorded words, three meant to convey liking (honey, dear and thanks), three to convey neutrality (maybe, really and oh) and three to convey disliking (don’t, brute and terrible). The words were spoken with varying tonalities and subjects were asked to guess the emotions behind the spoken words. The finding was that tone created more impact and meaning than words alone.

Thus the 55+38+7 Rule was born and has been promoted around for years and decades across disciplines and other learning interaction. Years later, Dr. Mehrebian declared he never intended his results to be applied to everyday conversations and public speakers cannot just depend on 55+38% impact alone. The truth is that the spoken word has several intangible components and a flat out application or the assumption of this rule would be a fallacy. All interactions must equally depend on the three factors i.e. body, non-verbal and the words. The percentages of each my resemble the rule for 100% impact but in reality will vary upon depending on the medium and the context.

What true and heavy impact will really depend upon is the clarity, the purpose and the authentic agenda of the speaker. Through the filters of the body, the tonality, the gestures, the non-verbals and flowery language what are truly seen, heard and sensed well are the purpose and the agenda of the speaker. Getting an alignment and agreement between what we truly want, feel and need helps make the outward expression of it more viable, acceptable and impact heavy. Alignment of our internal resources_spititual, emotional, intellectual and physical is guaranteed to create resonance and consensus easily. View similar sentiments at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cfgToFYRfrM

Positive Intention

Late one night, me and more than a dozen friends of mine from the coaching profession walked into a small coffee shop in Greenhills, Manila. All of us, ready for a jolt of caffeine, gathered up at the counter. The attendant, who seemed to be cleaning up the place, went aghast at the crowd in front of him and declared the shop was closed.

“Wow, what time do you close?” said fiery Susan, the wealth coach.
“Uh, 10:00pm, ma’am” replied the attendant.
“But, it’s only 9:55 now!” she said with an edge to her voice.
“Yes, ma’am but one of our rules is to close at exactly 10:00pm and I don’t think we will be able to achieve that and yet serve all of you” he replied.

Now here was a clash of goals and ideals. Should the man have focused on specific goals or think big picture and ring up additional pesos to his daily sales goals.
For the attendant to think big picture and to make a decision in light of the Coffee Company’s strategic intentions he’d have to be fed with a lot more meaningful information rather than just a few regiments against which his performance would be measured. He’d have to juggle his decision making between the six generic performance indicators that every business strategist leans upon, namely; competitive advantage, flexibility of action, financial performance, resource utilization, quality of service and innovation. He’d have to choose between being excellent with resource utilization and increasing the financial performance of his outlet.

Now, the thrust of Leadership Conversations is not so much about strategy and decision making but more towards providing quality feedback and coaching others. The thrust is towards eliciting, through conversations, leadership qualities out of self and others.

So, imagine, a month later, the attendant is sitting in front of you and you’ve got to talk him about the evening a dozen or more customers lined up in front of him five minutes before closing and the fact that he’d let them know that the outlet was closed. Here’s an NLP [ Neuro-Linguistic Programming] presupposition that you can utilize, “There is a positive intention motivating every behavior, and a context in which every behavior has value.”

You’ve got to realize that his choice at that moment was based completely on the knowledge he had of the issues involved in that scenario. The outcome of his decisions may or may not have been in alignment with the company’s overall strategy but his intentions were absolutely positive. You could then, through questioning and dialogue, upgrade his decision-making skills for the future. You’d have to start with the presupposition that behind his behavior was a positive intention and then work your way forward and upward. That would be your leadership in action through NLP.

That evening in Greenhills, Susan, the wealth coach, gently influenced the attendant into taking our orders. He failed at closing on time but succeeded at raising his financial performance for the day.