Raju Mandhyan on Form & ContentR

Raju Mandhyan on Form vs Content     www.mandhyan.com

An Entrepreneurial Stretch

A little over a month ago, a bunch of colleagues and I were flying back from an event in Cebu, Philippines. At the airport, in a nice little sandwich shop I asked if my peppered chicken sandwich would have a few chips on the side. The waitress said she was sorry their outlet did not carry any chips. A sandwich without chips on the side did not make sense to me. “Do you think I could pop by a neighbouring shop and buy my own bag of Salt & Vinegar flavoured chips?” I asked. She gently paused, placed her note-taking pencil on her lips, “Let me see what I can do,” she said and left. And, she was gone for a while. “Oh, Sir, they only have a bag of regular chips, will those do?” she asked upon coming back. “That’ll be okay, I guess,” I replied. 
She disappeared again and took quite as much time as she’d done before. When she came back I offered to pay and asked why going to the store next door took so long. She didn’t accept the cash saying she’d include it in the whole tab and mentioned that the chips came not from the store next door but from one outside the airport. 

From outside the airport? I was amazed and touched by her efforts. This was quality service and of the kind that Filipinos are known for and take pride in. Upon further probing, I also discovered that she was not the manager of the sandwich shop and there was also no manager there as of that time and day. She’d take this decision to serve and satisfy customer needs in consensus with another colleague at the shop. 

I also learned that she was quite sure that management and the owners of that store would have approved of her decision and actions. For me that was an amazing feat. Very few employees in small stores like that bother to stretch their services and responsibilities so much. When we as managers or bosses are able to inculcate such responsible action taking, such environment where our teams can exercise entrepreneurship abilities and take risk then we too will deserve pats on our backs. 

 What we need to do is: 

1. Get clear about what our business goals and values are. 
2. Make these goals and values clear to all those that help and support our work. 
3. Nurture an atmosphere of support and service to all, customers and team members alike. 
4. Write down the policies and yet create room for experimenting and risk-taking. 
5. Applaud and reward outstanding acts (such as walking a mile to buy chips for a customer) of service, ingenuity, dedication, honesty and loyalty by individuals. 

I am, at this stage, so tempted to share the name of that girl and the sandwich shop at Cebu airport but I guess it’d be improper to do so without getting an approval from those concerned. But, I can tell you this...their peppered chicken sandwiches go really well with salty chips and a Coke.

the meek shall inherit the earth

It is also said that the meek shall inherit the earth. By meek they don’t mean small and scared but someone who is kind, forgiving and most of all humble. I respect this value and one incident in my life has made it a permanent part of my life.

It was 1969 and I was in my shorts. Yes please, you may take a moment to visualize me in my shorts. Spider legs! I used to study in a Zoroastrian school, in India, called the Sardar Dastur Hoshang Boy’s High School. In those days, hardly twenty years after the British rule, it still carried the Khaki culture. Kids wore Khaki uniforms and several teachers would dress in starched suits with safari-type, hard hats to go. The school campus was the size of ten football fields, had wooden buildings like military barracks. In summer the winds blew strong and dusty while in winter the skies were misty till noon. Several teachers were of the Zoroastrian faith, some Hindus and only one of them was a Christian. Mr. Arpootharaj was stout, dark-skinned with Dravidian features. He used to pat his curly, black hair down with pomade and his most outstanding feature was a smile that could be seen a mile away. He taught us Science, English and Maths. He was kind, funny and always forgiving. And because of his nature, he was always at the receiving end of jokes and pranks. Being a Christian teacher who taught Science, he’d often be seen marching the corridors of the school with the Bible, Darwin’s “The Origin of Species”, a blackboard eraser and a box of chalks by his side. The moment he’d enter a class, he’d demand the windows be thrown open to let in fresh air. He used to pronounce fresh air with flair…fresh aaiyr! And, because of this the boys nicknamed him “Sir, Fresh Aiyr!” One summer day, Sir, Fresh Air, walked into class sans his brilliant smile but with a look that was distant and pensive. With the eraser, he wiped the big blackboard clean once, twice and until it was black, shiny. With his chalk, he then placed a dot, plumb in the center of the blackboard. Slowly, he turned to the class and stated that we’d be studying Astronomy today and eased himself silently in a chair and stared straight ahead, still pensive and distant. The boys went wild. “What’s that, Sir?”, “Is that Astronomy, Sir?”, “Is that fresh air, Sir?” He did not react nor respond. The boys continued heckling but he stayed silent and distant. The boys didn’t know how to carry on. You cannot continue teasing a person who does not respond. The room turned silent and the silence grew such that a pin, if dropped, would be heard miles away. After what seemed like a millennium, Sir Fresh Air stood up and began to speak. "Imagine!" he said. "Imagine that the blackboard and all the space beyond is the universe. Recognize that the universe has thousands of galaxies and that little dot in the centre is the galaxy that we live in, our Milky Way." "Imagine,” he continued ”that within that dot, which is our galaxy, lays our Solar System and within that Solar System is our Sun, the Planets with their moons and our Earth. Within our planet Earth is our country, our hometown and this school room with all of us inside it.” “All of that,” he went on “is within the dot and more. Yet, we live a life that is filled with pride, distrust and hate." With a long sigh and still pensive, Sir Fresh Air, slowly sat down. The silence in the room took over again. Outside the wind still howled and the dust still blew. The boys in the class didn’t know what struck them. A while ago they were top of the heap and now they felt puny and negligible in their own minds. With a stroke of his chalk, the Bible-toting, funny little brown man with a dazzling smile shattered our worlds and left us with a lesson in humility that would last us a lifetime

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Gibran's Self Same Source

“Humor and pain, like comedy and tragedy, have subtle similarities.

At the basic level, they are essentially the same. A person who has suffered great pain and tragedy in life also has the ability to transcend it and convert it into comedy. If you look at the history of those who have made the world laugh, you will note that they did, indeed, suffer great sorrow and pain before discovering laughter. Shakespeare created immortal masterpieces of literature but lived a personal life wrought with longing and loneliness. His every work is a constant dance between the tragic and the comic. The legendary Doctor Patch Adams, who proved to the world that, indeed, laughter is the best medicine, lived a life of hardship and struggle. His patients loved his humor because they knew that behind the façade, he understood and deeply shared their pain. A few years ago, NBC held a primetime talent contest called Last Comic Standing, where Dat Phan, a young Vietnamese-American became the champion and attained instant stardom. Today, he lives his dream of making a living while making others laugh. As a kid, he and his mother lived on the streets of San Diego and slept on bus stop benches. Growing up, he worked as a waiter, a busboy, and a doorman at a casino and a comedy club. Phan is not hampered by his past experiences. His hardships have become an integral part of his humor, as has his upbringing in a poor cross-cultural family. "I do whatever it takes to do stand-up," Phan said in an interview. "There is an abundance of material in struggling and poverty and trying to make it. There is so much humor in that, it's unlimited. You have to be able to see it. You have to be very creative. In the beginning, I didn't do real well, I bombed dozens of times. Something sick inside told me to keep on trying because I had nothing to lose. I kept exposing myself to different audiences. I kept bombing and failing and being disappointed until I got just one laugh. And that laugh gave me encouragement to continue and pursue a career and a skill that makes others happy. The pain of my past has been my driving force and I believe that no matter how hopeless it seems there is always something to look forward to. In life, you can get to the next level if you're willing to give up everything and give everything you have in your heart to make it!” says Dat Phan. Kahlil Gibran rightly said: “The selfsame source from which your laughter rises was oftentimes filled with your tears.” Very often when we are laughing uncontrollably, we find tears streaming down our faces. And, quite as often, after we’ve expressed our pain through crying, we find ourselves laughing joyfully. Both laughing and crying provide cathartic cleansing. Our facial expressions also mirror this kinship. That’s why, at times, it’s hard to determine if one is crying or laughing. Somewhere in the depths of our souls and somewhere in the recesses of our limbic brains, laughing and crying are separated by a very thin line, just as comedy and tragedy are.” The HeART of Humor. When speakers, trainers and other facilitators play hopscotch over this fine line that divides comedy and tragedy using personal anecdotes and situational humor they create rapid rapport with their audiences and transfer new learning deeply and powerfully.

Four Score and Seven Years Ago

As you grow up the corporate ladder you realise that besides your technical skills and management savvy it is your ability to choose the right people, assign the right jobs and most important of all, it is your ability to inspire people that takes the top credence. A survey claims that at an average CEO spends over 90% of his time in working at communicating and inspiring people around him. Accomplished and successful CEOs do this with élan and there CEOs who need to work up and sharpen this edge of their competence. There are numerous ways to do this and the most important and the most needed way to accomplish this is to talk to people, facilitate thought and inspire action. Here is where you ability to think well, structure thought, connect suavely, engage deeply and influence with authenticity and congruence others needs tuning up and enhancing. Of all the methods and approaches to connect, engage and influence others the most powerful way to do this is to tell stories. Not just stories that start with ‘Once upon a time..,” but stories that are stylishly crafted, deeply researched, cannily assembled, effectively succinct, powerfully inspiring and stylishly delivered. Stories that can start with “Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent...” Stories claim that Lincoln’s Gettysburg address was regarded as one of the shortest possible speeches made by a President of the United States in those days but it was the most succinct, hit the nail bang on the head and was also awesomely inspiring. Stories also claim that Lincoln spent a lot of time editing and practicing it his mind, while walking on a beach, before he settled with those set of words, that speech structure and that powerful story format to change the direction and history of a great country. CEOs today in the 21st century can learn from these classic cases and examples and tell stories to inspire. What happens when you tell a story? When you tell a story, you are handing out concepts and paradigm without indoctrinating and without being overbearing and boorish with details, data and delegations. With stories you are handing out flux and wisdom which listeners can use in any which they want and mould it according to their understanding, according to their needs and yet be able to find common ground between them and you, the CEO. Stories land upon the psyche of others but grip and move powerfully because the listener participates and takes ownership of ideas, emotions and interpretation that rise out their own being their value systems. Thus, not only do the listeners take ownership but also, subtly and smoothly, make silent commitments to act and be responsible for what is co-created and generated between them and their leader. This is powerful. This is one of the ways how effective CEOs inspire others.

the Appreciative Inquiry way of life

Though this has impacted me several times and through multiple avenues, I can’t seem to be impressed any lesser every time it happens again...the fact that assessing any situation through a proactive stance and doing something concrete about challenges and hopes most often than not generates happy and constructive outcomes. <> I’ve spent the first three months of 2012 working with a bunch of senior executives of a global corporation. In the last quarter of 2011 their sales were down, they were developing lesser new products and people in several of their departments were low on energy and low on engagement. Upon probing deeper and conversing with people at multiple levels we sensed a drop in trust levels amongst the senior management. Though this was barely visible in their behaviours and internal communications, it seems that production, sales and even marketing had read between the lines and gotten a whiff of the underlying tremors. The infliction had spread and was slowing down progress and even routine work. <> We used a combination of strategies and interventions to heal the underlying tremors and discords. Most all of them were first focussed on impressing upon all departments the value of consistent growth through innovation. Followed by small group discussions which were facilitated such to increase personal and corporate alignment. Once the teams and parts of the organization began to understand what needed to be done several creative thinking session were held where cross-functional teams came up with well-defined plans to innovate on people development, process improvement and suggestions on big-picture strategies for growth. Of the scores of plans, a select few will be implemented, deployed. <> The miraculous thing about the whole process was that since the dialogues and discussions were held following the Appreciative Inquiry way of life, the fringe benefits and the by product was increased engagement at all levels of the organization. It may not show on the company’s scorecards yet but the energy levels, the open discussions in the hallways and even the number of hi-five’s seemed to have gone up. <> In the coming months we will still recoup and run surveys on the actual results and numbers but as of now the senior leadership and most all of us involved feel that what has been done has been done for the better and it is bound to have a long-term positive effect. ...<> Register for an Introductory Workshop on Appreciative Inquiry in India

How to Inspire Like a CEO

Five Quick Tips on How to Inspire Like a CEO: ...... Number One: Care and respect others and their perceptions about life and work. Have your opinion, act upon what you choose but honestly and truthfully, at a very deep level, care for and respect all other perceptions. ...... Number Two: Be credible and worthy of being in a position to inspire others. Just words and promises do not inspire others. Others are more inspired by who you are and what you do. Words, we all know can be used to dress up windows. It is what lies behind the words and the windows that people usually peep into and go “aha!” ..... Number Three: Know how to connect, engage and influence others. The gift of being able to communicate well is not always encoded into our genes but many a times it is an acquired skill. Learn the science and master the art. Practice it often. ...... Number Four: Rouse, enthral and challenge people towards something big and bright. A vision? A hope? A mountain top? Or, for a start, even a million dollars will do. ..... Number Five: Catch on fire. Stay lit. Burn! One of my favourite quotes is: “Towards your purpose and your dream, ignite yourself with such passion that people from far and wide will watch you burn!” Inspiring others is about lighting up a fire inside of others_sometimes gently and creatively and sometimes explosively but the fact remains that the fire has to be lit INSIDE of them. ... Mention this blog and get a free Audio CD on the HeART of Public Speaking when your register for Inspire Like a CEO

Creativity and Innovation: Executing Ideas

Last newsletter, I shared some ideas on how to “Subtly Sell” your Value Proposition to peers or investors and received a question on how do we assure successful execution of ideas in our organisations.

My top of the mind ideas are;

Have the ideation team be and stay as part of the execution team. They already have an intellectual stake and an emotional attachment to their innovation plans and strategies. The stake and the attachment will keep their passions fuelled and will also engage and influence others in the team, and in the supporting teams. Should there be any kinks that pop during the process of execution their participation will help them draw upon other ideas that had been brought up during the ideation stage. The kinks can be patched up with unused ideas from the ideation period.

Throw in a small number of outsiders, non-team members who will keep challenging or stumbling through the process of execution and building. These members can become the untrained, uninitiated feedback providers. They can bring in the same critical or amazed views and opinions that usually come from the real market, the real customer. This will keep the main team on their toes and even during the process of execution new ideas can still be incorporated in the progress of the process or the product.

Lastly, we should be ready to write-off the investment of time, money and man-hours that we put into these new plans. Driving change and innovation is a venture and must have a large amount of risk-taking ability and attitude built into the new ideas and action. There are no guarantees in life and in business.

Click here for the previous article.

Creativity and Innovation: Selling Your Value Proposition

Ideation in industries is challenging but the bigger challenge is converting ideas into actions, executing those ideas and also convincing peers and investors to buy into your ideas. Our ideas remain worth a sneeze if they can't be converted into value propositions and tangible, measurable products, processes or projects.

Yesterday, at a workshop I was asked..."How'd you get peers and investors to buy in?"

Here are three, really, quick tips.

Step 1:
Sneak the idea, subtly, into their mind-environment like fragrance, like mist, like a dainty little butterfly. CEOs, CIOs, Investors, like all of us, probably a bit more, are busy and pre-occupied. Sneaking in an idea into their environment makes them feel they thought about it, they came up with it, thus, they will want to own and invest into it.

Do this through a press leak, a tweet, a hand-written note. Or, speak to your companion, in an elevator, in hushed tones within their earshot. Essentially, let the idea seep into their system without having to work through natural human resistances.

Step 2:
Assuming this gets you into their boardroom for a "little" chat about a new idea, go prepared to go for the jugular and make major impact.

Carry, a less than 3 minute presentation/chat/proposal which...
Describes the proposition in crystal clear terms. Edit it a thousand times for impact and clarity.

Keeps your proposition irrefutable and backed up by proof or testimonials from valid or respectable sources.
Has an underlying agenda and a visible agenda that is ethical and delivers a greater good...in alignment with corporate vision and values.

Step 3:
Offer to participate and drive the execution of the idea and stay with it till its launch and, inevitable, success. Rarely do people want to buy into and invest in an idea until it seems to them that the person proposing is committed to it and will stand behind its execution.

Think of innovation as new action and a put in conscious effort to sell and execute your ideas.

HeART SmART™ Creativity & Innovation
Raju Mandhyan

Allama Iqbal Khudi Ko Kar Bulund Itna recited by Raju Man...

"Make yourself so mighty in spirit and selflessness that
Way before your destiny changes Providence itself shall come and have a dialogue with you, and ask,
“What is that you wish to have, to happen 'anak'?"