Hard Work, Smart work, Inspired Work - Part II

In Part I of this article we examined the characteristics of Hard work and Smart work. Let us take a look at how to up the ante and level up to inspired work.

 

A great quote I found in Jeff Haden's article says "Great employees follow process. Remarkable employees find ways of making those processes better, not because they are expected to, but because they just can't help it."

 

While hard work and smart work have their measures of productivity, is it really possible to accurately measure the hours that went into creating a vision or idea? Inspirational works of art, music, drama seem to come into being as though by sheer magical. The aura and influence that truly inspirational ideas create are indeed described in terms like 'out of this world'. However, there is much truth behind Edison's words and these geniuses and inspired masters indeed are often toiling away and burning the candle at both ends before revealing the fruits of their labor onto a mesmerized world. There would be tons of reading and calculations which would have gone into creating the Eureka moment. What sets the genius apart from the hard worker and smart worker which enables him to perform inspired work? 

 

Jeff Sutherland states in his blog that one can actually be more productive by working less! He quotes a Florida State University study which found that our bodies work in short sprints of 90 minutes. The study concluded from observing "elite musicians, artists and chess players that the best performers typically practice in uninterrupted sessions that last no more than 90 minutes. They begin in the morning, take breaks in between sessions, and rarely work more than four and half hours in any given day."  

 

Applied to the work place, this can be used to maximize productivity, creativity and innovation. In any typical day, whether you spend 8 hours at office or 16 hours, your actual productive hours will be rarely more than 5-6 hours when you get some work done. Point to note here is that checking your mails, attending calls, planning your holiday, catching up on your reading and filing reports to your boss does not count as work, just because you do it at your office desk. Work is what adds value to the organization in achieving its key goals. After removing these non-work activities if you still find yourself doing 5-6 hours of 'work work' in a day, you are a truly remarkable gem and a rarity indeed.

 

For those engaged in thought leadership or creative or strategic fields, the 90 minute sprint makes great sense. I find it effective to file away this category of work into my subconscious (and of course my notepad :)) and let it mull over while I get going with the routine. When the time comes, I find a lot of ideas accumulated on the subject and one just needs to sort them out, find the logical order and communicate them in a comprehensible manner. This can be often be achieved in the less than 90 minute sprint. On the contrary, working long hours on deadlines constantly, leads to sub-optimal work produced. We end up ignoring the mind's state of alertness or fatigue and relentlessly keep going against a dead end. The shorter sprint also brings focus in your work. The curse of creativity is that there are always too many ideas floating around your mind and you don't know which one to work on. The short period forces you to focus on what you can do now and here and this way you accomplish more with less. 

 

This series of the blog was written in less than 90 minute work periods. :)

Hard Work, Smart Work, Inspired Work - Part I

One will find hard work and smart work very prevalent in most organizations. There will be cases indeed where smart work will replace hard work, thus bringing in productivity, efficiency and all the gains of not doing unnecessary and non-value add tasks.

Hard work does not distinguish the value of the work. It is mostly concerned with the volume of work. If something needs doing, it will be done by sheer brute force, if need be. Manual labour, data entry, accounting and audit related record keeping are instances where hard work thrives and is rewarded. Hard work recognizes heroics of individual persistence. You will find energetic hard workers jump in to help their over-whelmed colleagues regardless of their role. Motivation for hard workers can be external or internal. Carrot and stick routines of motivation work best when one intends to extract hard work. Qualities that are appreciated in hard workers are punctuality, reliability, stamina for slogging into late hours. Vision or direction is usually left to managers and supervisors while work is left to workers. This leads to a thriving command and control structure. Edison's quote - "Genius is one percent inspiration and ninety nine percent perspiration" is often the guiding mantra for hard workers. Edison indeed practiced what he preached, working more than 20 hours a day on his inventions, his 1093 patents a testimony to his efforts.

There is a different school of thought on the other hand that tends to side with Oscar Wilde who said "Hard work is the refuge of people who have nothing to do". It is a well established fact that work expands to fill the time available. Time can also be replaced with resources including finances available as can be seen from the spend of many governments who are able to boost economic activity by pumping quantum heaps of monetary instruments into the system.

Smart work starts with prioritizing and time management. Important tasks are actively sought while trying to minimize urgent tasks. Smart work seeks out inefficient processes and continuously tweaks them to weed out non-value add steps. Automation is often the simplest of strategies for doing work smartly, but it doesn't stop at that. There is a recognition that all automation is not smart and even automated processes can stimulate hard work syndrome. Creativity and flexibility are the hall marks of smart work. Motivation for smart work comes from the feeling of satisfaction in making something better than it was. Smart work aligns itself to the organization's goals. People in this category are eager to learn, asking questions and challenging the status quo. Organizations where smart work thrives generally have flat hierarchies and open cultures which encourage not just following the process but questioning the process as well. Risk taking is generally higher and it is considered ok to fail sometimes in the quest for smarter solutions. Work life balance is also an important consideration and the goal is to ensure getting more benefits out of less efforts. Thus instead of a hard working 16 hours, a smart output of 8 hours is considered to have generated higher value for the organization.

... To be concluded in Part II (Inspired Work)

Gamification of the workplace

Social apps and games are today omnipresent and you can see people engaged in one or the other of these activities while traveling, waiting at airports or generally filling up their free time. Some facebook updates even show people climbing various levels or achieving new powers when they are supposed to be at work. :) The levels of engagement that gaming is able to generate got me thinking on how to harness the same levels of energy and engagement and apply it in work scenarios. I pondered on a few attributes which enables the gaming industry to keep people occupied for long hours on end. 

• Responsibility and ownership - At the very outset, you are clearly given the ownership of your 'territory' in the form of a city or a farm or a piece of real estate. There are defined boundaries and set tasks that you are supposed to perform with given resources in order to ensure the well-being of your territory. Relating this to the work scenario, when a new resource 'signs up' to your organization, evaluate whether he is given this sense of responsibility and ownership on day one of logging in. 

• Coaching and guidance - Invariably, day one on a new game comes with a tutorial where you are taught some basic tasks to perform which will help you in your daily routine. Some of the more successful games will assign a virtual assistant who will guide you through the initial few days and ensure you do not get lost in the maze. You are able to confidently chart out your course with this assistance on the basic paths leaving you to explore the enhanced levels depending on your aptitude and interest.

• Decision making - In complex, multi level strategy games, you are often allowed to create the story board individually. Every individual will have the choice of which path he wants to navigate, thus creating his own unique experience. At every stage there is a decision to be made on the next steps to be followed. There will of course be consequences and rewards of choosing one or the other activity which will lead you on a particular strategy path. While the internal logics of strategic path creation are really complex, the choices for the individual are quite clear and concise to enable him to move forward in his chosen direction.

• Daily mission - To become a really accomplished player, you would of course need to constantly polish your methods and climb up the levels to unlock new skills.  This takes daily practice in your tasks and requires learning new tasks and methods to accomplish more. There are consequences to not keeping daily tabs on your tasks as invariably something or someone will suffer from the lack of daily activity. As you practice daily on given tasks, you become proficient and can climb up the levels till you reach a particularly tough level to crack (level of incompetency?). Most often you also have your daily mission set out for you which can act as your to-do list. Create five new sales leads today, submit your pipeline report and account for your expenses today - ring a bell for anyone?

• Instant feedback - Every action or inaction has an immediate consequence. This feedback is very bluntly available as you progress along the daily chores. Positive actions earn you credits and allow you to prepare for the next endeavor. In multi-player simulations, you are able to even get feedback from real or virtual co-players. This feedback enables you reflect on your actions, modify your methods to perform the same tasks or helps you perform advanced tasks.

• Collaboration - In a multi-player scenario it is often possible to collaborate with other players. This leads to collaborative planning and combined efforts which always have greater impact than individual efforts. There are scenarios to be part of a larger group rather than limit yourself to an individual city, farm or restaurant. Thus you start being a part of an organization and your actions now have an impact on the well being and survival of the organization and not just your own territory.

• Rewards - As you become accomplished in the game, your fame starts to spread and your achievements are published in your social feed for you to gloat on and for your friends to try achieve similar glory. Rewards can also be in the form of working on new levels, acquiring new powers or skills or tools. When every action provides certain credits to your account, it becomes all the more motivating. Usually organizations do have incentives directly correlated with targets usually for their sales and marketing functions. The inhibiting factor in such target linked incentives is that they work only till the target is exhausted and there is always a fear of breaking the target which will permanently raise the bar in future periods and act as a dis-incentive for breaking the target in the current period. Anyway, that's a topic for another blog post. 

• Growth - Building on the above points of collaboration and rewards, there can be opportunities for growth based on your skill levels, your collaboration and organization capabilities. Growth can be in terms of increasing the size of our territory, your wealth or the strength of your group. This leads to aiming for the next higher level of growth which is now a distinct possibility.

• Engaging experience- However complex the internals of the game are, as far as the user is concerned his task is never made complex. Success of the game and its popularity and success is directly proportional to the ease of use of the interface, challenges posed to ensure the daily routine never becomes boring. All of this combines to ensure that it is easy to use and difficult to put down once started. The focus is always in ensuring the player keeps coming back for more.

Introducing these concepts into the workplace would of course have impacts on hierarchies and processes.

 

Is it possible to apply these principles to lead to a 'gamification' of the workplace leading to an enhanced sense of ownership and higher engagement levels? Would love to hear your feedback.

Next Wave Strategy for Indian IT Industry

I felt honoured to be a part of the panel discussions on Indian IT Industry at Communique 12 organized by Symbiosis in Pune. http://www.sitm.ac.in/International_tele_seminar_Communique.asp

The viewpoints put forth by me covered how Indian IT can move towards a product based model as opposed to a people based revenue model, challenges to Innovation and opportunities for diversification.

Moving towards a Product oriented model

• We can take some lessons from what made the services model such a huge success for Indian IT Industry
• It was no doubt a perfect example of private initiative backed by government policy which made IT in India a priority sector
• IT in India is engaged in the services model by design since the IT policy in the mid-1980s stressed on Electronics and Software as a solution for unemploymen
• That policy definitely succeeded as we see the number of people in India today employed in this sector with education institutes churning out almost 400k candidates in the market every year
• There are indeed IT companies in US one example which comes to mind which generate $700 mn revenues with less than 50 people
• This model may not be suitable for India. It may be great for one or two companies but in the larger national interest of serving the lowest of the low, the utility of this model in really helping India raises more questions than it answers.
• Putting the social aspects aside, let us see how do we make this model work for moving to a product based model
• There are several challenges which have prevented this model from being adopted so far
• We are often found lacking in India in terms of facilities and infrastructure required to encourage product based model
• It is indeed easier for me, sitting here in India, to register a company in Delaware US and get a server procured and installed in a US data center rather than India
• Existing product expertise is sitting on foreign shores. Indian IT has excelled in the routine, but when it comes to core product architecture issues we need to depend on outside expertise
• No doubt Indian IT has resourceful manpower. This manpower is dedicated and career oriented and has a focus on self development.
• But this mindset may not augur well for innovation and product creation. To innovate you need a maberick and not a career climber
• From a policy point of view, we need to encourage this product expertise to come and reside in India. Existing product innovators among organizations should feel encouraged to set up India based Product Innovation and Development Centers. Mind you, not just Offshore Development Centers where you hire code jockeys while retaining the architecture skill set in home country but Product Innovation and Development Centers where product is created from the ground up in India
• In order to get the government think tank on the job of how to make India a home for Product Innovation and Development, they must be made to see what is in it for India. Industry need to go back with the answer on how does becoming a product development center instead of a services based industry which generates employment for millions, really favor India?
• This thinking about Indian interests has to become foremost for Indian IT industry which can then result in directional changes in policy to make product based model a success as the services based model has done.

Innovation

• We touched upon the manpower resourcefulness and mindsets required for innovation.
• For innovation to succeed there has to be a tolerance for failure (1/3000 ideas are successful)
• India is a nation in a hurry. We are playing catch up with the rest of the world. We feel that 40 years of socialism has left us behind. What we are seeing hapening in society today is an acknowledgement of the existence of a better way of life and an awakening and a revolution of the masses towards the need for a better life.
• In this social milieu of speed and change, we have to see where innovation fits in. Innovation cannot exist by itself. Innovation has to fulfill a need. Innovation is made successful not by the innovator but by the users.
• For organization be innovative, we have to realize that innovative organizations are made up of innovative individuals. While the organization can provide a platform for individuals to innovate, it can also result in shackles for innovation.
• Organizational innovation programs are often linked to corporate imperatives plans, markets for growth. There is limited scope for a philanthropic approach to innovation within organizations.
• Individuals can also be organized. Individuals can be agile. Individuals can be innovative. Most innovation comes out of garages rather than corporate R&D labs.
• What organizations can do is provide a platform for innovation. They cannot attempt to control innovation and can perhaps channelize innovation by setting up the right environment, posing the right questions, encouraging risk taking thus empowering the innovators.
• Organizations can ENABLE while leaving it to individuals to ENACT
• Organizations also need to think in terms of what are the right measures for innovation - investment and resources spent or ideas nurtured, patents filed.

Diversification and geographical growth

• I will acknoledge the work of Prof Rupa Chanda from IIM-B for the next section where I pick up three themes for diversification, very roundly covered in her article - US protectionism - An opportunity in disguise? http://www.iimb.ernet.in/newsletter/issues/97
• The need for diversification comes from saturation of existing markets, economic slowdown and protectionist measures adopted by countries. The situation described for the US applies as well for any other countries adopteding such measures
• Market diversification
• Indian IT industry is largely an exports based country and there is a definite need for diversification, competitiveness and exploring new areas of growth.
• Indian domestic market is largely ignored, even though Indian economy is seeing comfortable levels of growth as comapred to other markets.
• Foreign investment in India is on the rise because of the opportunities here in India. What about Indian IT investment in India? The investment here has to be for market creation and market growth. Margins similar to those earned for exports cannot be a key focus in Indian markets.
• Local presence in target markets
• Local employment creation in the markets that IT industry operates in should be made a key priority. For sure, countries where Indian IT industry is seeking to create a market would welcome them if they are seen to be solving unemployment problems of those markets.
• As contributors to the local econnomy, the industry will also gain in lobbying strength
• Government support in foreign policy
• Government can help in creating a safe environment for Indian IT industry and Indian professionals in the markets they operate in.
• There is a need for engaging with these countries at diplomatic levels to ease the entry of Indian IT industry and pre-empt any protectionist views.
• Just like in the success of services model, private and government initiative and partnership can go a long way in influencing and investing in bi-lateral and multi-lateral commercial agreements
• Lastly the focus of industry can be turned towards Nation Building within India - there are indeed opportunities in e-governance, e-auctions, e-learning which can be explored towards achieving the goals of sustenance, growth and national benefit.

What does the customer do?

Outward looking organizations
Implementation of processes including completely internal facing process are ultimately to serve our customer. To achieve this end goal of serving end customers, the process has to in some way enhance efficiency or result in productivity, which would enable the organization to serve the customer better. Today the customer also expects a quicker turn around time on services. There is a pressure on prices and margins in almost every competitive industry, hence these efficiency and productivity gains are also expected to result in better pricing points for the customer. Faster, better, cheaper anyone?

Is this enough?
So, organizations have traditionally been 'outward looking' in setting themselves up in terms of people, process and system. However, is it sufficient to be termed outward looking? Should we not also be concerned about what kind of outside view are we tuned towards? The direction of this outward looking view or the fine-tuning of how well acquainted we are with our customers needs should be of prime interest.

What we are saying here is that while we did have an outside-in view in the organization's activities, we had been designing these processes, systems and structures thinking 'what do we want to do for our customer' rather than 'what does the customer want to do (period)'.

Not 'what the customer wants us to do'. Not 'what the customer wants to do with our products and services'. Not even 'what the cutomer wants to do on our e-biz site'. No No and yet again an emphatic No.

Just plain and simple 'what does the customer want to do (period)'.

In order to discover what the customer wants to do, we have to, of course, study - what does the customer do? It has to become our business to know the customer's business. And I am talking both B2B as well as B2C here.
As an airline I have to think, as a individual or corporate customer, when planning to go from point A to point B, what would be the expectation in terms of safety, comfort and convenience. What experiences would I value  most? This goes beyond the ease of ticketing and check-ins.
As an electronics retailer, I would need to think beyond how do I serve the individual and corporate customer better in terms of ordering, delivery, billing. I need to go into the territory of why the customer is buying what he is buying. What will she do with this device? Am I helping the customer make the right choice best suited for his needs?

Any examples or comments that spring to mind?

Futility of consensus

Trying to achieve consensus in corporate decision making is often somewhat like Waiting for Godot. Consensus by default means a group has together decided to take certain actions. This often gets translated as 'organization policy' or 'management decision' and thus it is difficult to find an owner responsible for the same. Often people seem to seek consensus when they are not confident enough to take decisions on their own. It is also an effective tool for delaying certain decisions.

Building consensus takes huge efforts, time and patience. There are conflicting interests to navigate and people's knowledge levels and skills are sometimes questionable to take a call on the issue at hand. If you are in a competitive, cut-throat industry and need quick go-to-market timelines to survive, forget about achieving this by consensus. In such a scenario it is always better to have a firm owner who is empowered enough to take decisions and assume responsibility of such decisions.

Instances abound in the corporate world where organizations have tried dual leadership models, possibly to reduce risks. What gets reduced is the speed and agility with which organizations can respond to change. A recent example which comes to mind is Wipro - http://news.in.msn.com/business/article.aspx?cp-documentid=4825457, where this model failed. Infosys on the other hand shows a different approach where joint founders got a shot at the top position in turns, with varying degrees of success and acceptance.

In my view looking for consensus becomes futile in these situations -

• Conflicting or Vested Interests
• Missing Big Picture
• Lack of Clarity of Vision across Organization
• Seeking Opportunity to Negotiate Self-Interest (you scratch my back I will scratch yours)
• Multiple Strong Dictatorial Views
• No Party Willing to Give Ground
• Attitude of 'Not My Turf'
• Oppose for the Sake of Opposition

When looking for approaches and methods of building consensus, I found several articles propagating the advantages of consensus and how to make consensus work. So here's a view from my side to say there is no consensus on the utility of consensus. :)

Project Management Approach to Nation Building

This week in Bangalore at the PMI National Conference 2011, I had the pleasure of hearing India's former President Dr APJ Abdul Kalam on the topic of Project Management Approach to Nation Building. A truly inspirational speech which exhorted the audience of mostly project managers to be leaders and create leaders in the task of nation building. Dr Kalam recounted his experiences in ISRO and DRDO around project management.

The question I had formulated to ask the eminent speaker and which was expressed in most of the questions from the rest of the audience was to solicit his views on tackling corruption - one of the big obstacles to nation building which has been brought under the spotlight  very harshly in recent times.
In his replies, Dr Kalam beseeched parents and teachers to instill in their children a value system which prevents the very thought of corruption as a normal way of life. This would lead to a revolution of truth with the youth brigade leading the charge and which questions their elders and seniors when and where they see a wrong practice - be it in their homes itself.

He also pointed to the initiatives in e-governance which he had started while he was President of India, and pointed out the transparency and accountability this inherently brings in public dealings.
Another very powerful concept that Dr Kalam elaborated was creating a Brand of Integrity around oneself which then permeates to the environment around one and starts increasing the Circle of Integrity. He explained how due to this brand of integrity which he himself followed and promoted, in his 40 years of experience in dealing with public funds as well as dealings with government officials and people's representatives, no one ever asked him to do anything wrong. That is the value which his Brand of Integrity confers on him and his work.

Dr Kalam asked us to take a pledge to work with integrity and suceed with integrity. He also pointed out the importance of managing failures better than managing success.

A few key take-aways from his speech on project management for nation building -
- What worked yesteday is not going to work in today's changing, tumultous and volatile times. The focus has indeed shifted from

• availability of resources to availability of knowledge,
• hierarchy to synergy,
• command to facilitation,
• order to empower and
• seniority or authority to creativity

My earlier blog postings on a similar topic is listed here for relevance. The redundancy of hierarchies