Wednesday, February 2, 2022

You are in EGO trapped when you have below symptom: [ Chandan Lal Patary]

 You are in EGO trapped when you have below symptom:

• You are overlooking the negative comment.
• Submerged into positive feedback! People can use this
superficial flattery to appeal to your ego and, finally, influence
your decision-making in order to benefit themselves or their
business.
• You love control; you feel wonderful when you exercise this
power
• You know everything and no need to change anything. You are
not welcoming any fresh suggestions.
• You do not walk the talk,
• You always walk with “yes sir” people. You choose to walk with
them as they listen to you and accept you.
• You do not like to receive criticism if someone wants to share
with you You think you have all the answers in the room, and nobody
knows as much as you know
• You demand people follow you
• You lost in touch with the latest happenings and you live in
your own best world
• You love to receive 1000 likes on Facebook, if it less, you feel
sad!
• You are worried about how others will read you! You work for
others to get acknowledged
• You benchmark yourselves with others always
• You are living in the past, carrying past and worry about the
future
• You judge the individuals based on their action
• You communicate with others to impress them
• You take yourself seriously
• You need individuals to be around yourself to acknowledge
your contribution
• You want to win at any cost and always right

Coaching & Mentoring tips:

As Mentee or coachee, I adhere to these below points
A) As a Coachee, I understand the purpose of our meeting
B) As a Coachee, I understand what I am going to discuss
C) As a Coachee, I am prepared and share all the challenges and progress I am making
D) As a Coachee, we discuss together to measure the progress
E) As a Coachee, I devote my times to demonstrate dedication and commitment
F) As a Coachee, I look for feedback which can help me to experiment, study and reflect
G) As a Coachee, I openly discuss what is working and what is not working and we agree to course correct
H) As a Coachee, we identify the development areas and work upon on those
I) As a Coachee, I comment about the openness, a trust created in our discussion
J) As a Coachee, I share my feedback about my coach/mentor
K) As a Coachee, I ensure I cancel the meeting well ahead and the same action admitted from the Coach/mentor side
L) As a Coachee, I ensure our relationship maintained and we work together to improve the same

Thursday, December 23, 2021

High-Performance team: Story from Lagaan movie!




'Lagaan' movie was released in the year 2001

I was telling the Lagaan story to one of the team.

It has been 20 yrs the Lagan movie has made and geat movie on cricket at that time.

It shows how a team performance improved and can happen and take a dedicated journey with forming storming and norming to performing stage.

High-performance Team requires below areas to be strengthened:

a. Effective Team Coaching

b. Appropriate Team Context

c. Balance Team Chemistry

d. Appropriate Team Composition

e. Effective Team Leadership

You could find all these elements well visible in the Lagan movie.



Effective Team Leadership:

In the year 1893, the villagers of Champaner await meeting their Raja. They want to ask for an exemption from tax (Lagaan) but the Raja is busy watching the British play a match of cricket. A young farmer named Bhuvan mocks the game. This is overheard by the company captain, Andrew Russell who later challenges Bhuvan to a game of cricket in return for canceling their tax, a bet that Bhuvan accepts. throughout the movie, Bhuban demonstrated persistence to win the game with an optimistic attitude.



Effective Team Coaching:

Despite protests from the village, Bhuvan gathers a few supporters and then they try to learn the game of cricket. Elizabeth, Captain Russell's visiting younger sister, approaches them, offering to help. She wants to teach them the game so that the match is played fairly. Bhuvan is delighted, and the group starts meeting Elizabeth on grounds outside the village to learn the game. She was consistently enabling the teams to learn and play better cricket.




Bhuvan also coached the team wherever possible throughout the game to understand the game better. It helped the team to improve.

Appropriate Team Composition:

The captain of the cricket team, Bhuvan, led his team.

Lakha initially protested to come but later join in the game

Bagha was always there and he supported Bhuvan with great field fielding skills.

Ismail was a good, calm-headed batsman who played even in an injured state giving the team an opportunity to push for a final win.

Ishwar was the team doctor who meant business and took didn't go back on commitments.

Guran, a fortune teller, was another good support for the team

Bhura is also great

Kachra, The ‘untouchable’ who couldn’t have got into the team had it not been for Bhuvan’s aid, Kachra was a splendid bowler who controlled the game within reach on the second day and it was his over-and-a-half long association with Bhuvan at the absolute end that pushed the team.

Young Tipu entered in place of wound Ismail in the movie. He had the highest partnership with Bhuvan.

Former sepoy and a beautiful all-rounder, Deva was one of the best planners of the team, and the most qualified, who fell a run shy of a half-century in the most inappropriate of dismissals.


Appropriate Team Context:

Despite protests from the village, Bhuvan gathers a few who support him, and together, they crouch outside the cantonment grounds trying to understand the game. None of these people very played cricket other than gulli danda! With the help of a little bit of knowledge and enlighten team help, the team could understand the cricket with through practice.



Balance Team Chemistry:

Initially, team chemistry was not so good, as when practice progressed slowly all the team members get each other wavelengths better. It improved over a period of time with an effort from all sides.


Look into any high performance team, you will be able to find these 5 forces how well these are playing a role to build a winning successful team.



Wednesday, October 20, 2021

Team Case Studies

 

Case Study 1:

George is an extremely friendly manager working with the IT production support team. He has a 10-member team. He is 15+ yrs. Of experience in the IT infrastructure support function. He is a 100% people person who always spends time with the team. The team has been working for the last several years on this production support ticketing and troubleshooting assignments. George is associated with each team member at the personal level. They regularly visit outside office parties and enjoy life. There is some attrition every year and new individuals join George’s team. But he preserves the same traction, support with the team. Technology has changed fast in the last couple of years, so there is a lot of pressure on the production support team owing to IT automation. Management wants to reduce headcount and 24/7 support through automation. This establishes a lot of pressure on George to increase pressure on the team members, reduce headcount, and deal with the latest competency issues among team members. George constantly inspires teams, though there is production support late at night, work at the weekend to satisfy the customer needs, but George manages everything to make happy his team members and constantly learns something new.

What few of the suggestions you would like to give to George to make him ready for the upcoming automation world?

Case study 2:

What problem we are solving?

 

I have been coaching many teams. I have been looking for a formula that can guide me to know what exactly I should be doing when I start preparing for a High-performance team.

What are the parameters I should be looking for when I start thinking about a team?

Most of the time I have seen it has to start with an assessment and followed by a working agreement with the team and next having a coaching session to improve the specific scenarios.

Let us explain a use case

A team that is developing a specific feature for the Mobile camera. The team is trying to improve the image quality once the photo has been taken. Though in the night photos have to be taken and it will be dark, but the image quality should be automatically improved.

The team has a 6-member team. Most of the team members are experience ranges of 4-7 yrs. of experience. Most of the team members are very sound in technical term about this domain.

None of these team members have any knowledge of agile ways of working. They know how to write better code and deliver their own solutions individually. The team lead is also a technical person, there is tremendous release pressure to meet the deadline. The team has defined their KPI based on the code check-in with respect to time. Every one of the team members is running to meet the deadline, whoever is reaching the deadline fast will get a very good hike. Though it is a team, and they support each other, but huge importance is given to individual delivery and execution speed.

The team is having attrition issues. The work was very good, complete innovating work. Team members are also willing to learn and do.

As a team coach, what do you think we should improve for this team? What are the few questions you will ask?

Case Study-3:

Team Alexa is having trouble with delivering committed features for the AI/ML Project. Team members are struggling with communication, competencies, and many other team issues. John is the lead for this project. He has 30 people working on this release. He is wondering what he should do for the upcoming days, which can help to improve the team's overall situation. John approaches various of his friends to guide him to chalk out a plan for the future. Scully has been appointed to coach the team to improve the overall situation. John and Scully have been frequently meeting and have started preparing a coaching strategy to address the situation. If you were Scully, what would be your few top 10 actions for the upcoming 3-4 months? What are the various team contexts you will look for to start your journey and improve the situation?

Case Study – 4:

Debolina is a new scrum master who joined this Scrum team named REG-Bank. Teams are functioning on important, tight regulatory requirements. There are many team members who are fresh into the team and there are team members who have been working with this team for a long time. Debolina can quickly spot conflicts among team members. The product owners are from Finland. There is a sync issue among PO, managers, and team members. There are many production issues that require fixing on an everyday basis. Priya is the coach for the team. The team is not effective at dealing with the release pressure. What are some of the steps as a coach Priya should take? What Debolina should glance into? What context should they look for?

Case Study – 5:

Sourav is working on a team that is developing an algorithm to optimize the memory footprint of mobile photos. There are many challenges with the team connected to competency. The algorithms are new, and it has to refine with data for several round processes is laborious and ambiguous. There is a timeline pressure to release the app into the market owing to competition. The manager of this team comes from a testing background in the network domain. He does not understand the underlying work. The team has many freshers from renowned engineering colleges, but attrition is extremely high, so the knowledge build-up is going down every 9-12 months. The product management team is in Hong Kong and all the technology directions are coming from the Hongkong team. There are cultural and communication barriers. This team also requires establishing themselves to continue performing and demonstrating they can achieve the remarkable milestone. The team has 5 members, 3 are freshers and 2 are experienced employees. You are a team coach and want to help the team by exercising the attitude of the team and enhancing ways of working.

What are the few steps you will pick up to challenge the prevailing conditions and improve?

Case Study -6:

You have started a coaching assignment with a team, and you have discovered the below situation in the team context.

One of the team members was profoundly motivated to accomplish a high-quality outcome, though two others were content with merely just gaining a pass, i.e., they were thrilled to put in minimal effort. This mismatch of expectations caused many complications and frustration for team members.

Two other team members were extremely competitive on this team, which neutralized the development of an interdependent team environment. They were extremely concentrated on our own tasks and were not sympathetic in helping others who may have been having problems.

The team showed little concern for each other and gave almost no assistance to others in troublesome times. Team members seemed unfamiliar and greatly surprised that they had upset other team members with their commentaries. They seemed to have not recognized they were hurting other’s feelings by their comments and the propositions taken to solve team problems. Comments made by team members demonstrated that peers were inconsiderate of their situation and problems, and were not inclined to review problems, as they would merely invite criticism and negative feedback. This resulted in team members not communicating freely or examining their problems that had potentially crippling effects on the team; this team was formed randomly. Three of the original team members had a quick discussion on the project and decided to make a team, and another few team member arrived a week later, so the team agreed to accept them in their team, as they were required to make a team of nine. Expectations and skills were not deliberately analysed; – the project manager happened to be the youngest in the team and didn’t command the respect needed. Team members often complain about team meetings being a waste of time, and also of team members being late or contributing effectively. One team member felt that he was not included in decision-making and did not receive all communication regarding the progress and development of the project from the project manager. The overall management of this team was realized to be unproductive by most of the team members.

What are the few steps you will start taking to improve the team coaching?

What areas to focus on for Exercise?

Case study 7:

Team UxMaximier is supposed to deliver the working software at every certain interval. But deliverables are not happening at the right speed. The team is composed of 7 members, but most of these members are not up to the mark in terms of domain and technical knowledge. The required skill set is significantly lagging. The conflict among the team members is high as they are not able to solve the problem on time. The manager of the team is trying hard to resolve issues by sitting with each one of them. But it is not good enough. The team is undergoing a reskilling drive, but motivation is lagging. Team members are lethargic to take on the work.

Team member’s experience levels are right set. There is a mixture of junior and senior team members.

The support from top seniors’ leadership is not so good. They are constantly pressurizing and blaming the team for not performing at the appropriate level.

The Manager of the team trying hard but still getting the blame from senior leaders. The team members are not owning the overall responsibility. They have been with the company for 10 + years and they know the tricks of the game!

What do you think as a High-performance team coach, a few steps you will start?

How do you define your short-term and long-term goals to improve the team outcomes and output?

Case Study 8:

Team Diagnostic Monitoring is employed in developing an algorithm that should optimize the search. When voice search enables, the accuracy based on the accent has to be improved. The team consists of 4 members team. The scrum master and product owner are both goods in domain and technology. The team includes extensive attrition. The team members own the end-to-end product development. The team dynamics are appropriately set. There is a reasonable and learning environment. The share and care are properly distributed. But the team members are going out for a further opportunity. The new members are joining the team and overall delivery speed is coming down due to the immense learning curve. Team leadership is very good and servant leadership styles are visible.

You are the coach for this team.

What are all the varied actions you would prefer to pick up to improve the situation?

All the project-related meetings are followed in a well-crafted manner as SM and PO are extremely mature and they are the finest in the organization.

Case study 9:

One of my colleagues has recently joined one of the huge complex programs.
Let me explain briefly about the program.


It takes 10 yrs. To get the first drop of oil from an
oil well.
The chance of obtaining the first drop of oil from the oil well is also 1 in 10. If we dig 10 oil wells, we may get 1 or 2 rigs where we will get oil.


So, what is the complication we are talking about? It takes several dozens of numerous expert engineers to function together for many years to get the initial drop of oil.
So what? How can an organization make money? The country’s jurisdiction is also playing a substantial role here. The geopolitical atmosphere also contributes to or risks to the business.
So what problem are we talking about? How can modern digital technology aid us to speed up the oil exploration business? Can we use big data technology? Can we use cloud technology? and we use UX to build solutions? Some of the question’s organizations have been asking for the last several years and have started building solutions around those.

So, my friend joined the team where 150+ varieties of engineers are functioning together to deal with this complex problem.

Exploring by employing digital technology, can we build the solution?
It is a multi-year program, and he has joined as a scrum master for 3 different scrum teams to take care of.

It is a globally distributed team.

By reading all these parameters, what thoughts come to your mind? How do you want to guide my friend to start up his journey in a smooth and rapid manner?
What are the numerous team factors he should examine for the first month, 4 months, and 6 months’ timeline?
If you are a team coach, what would be your advice for him to embed him into a High-performance team?

Case study 10:

You are the Agile Coach of one of the freshly created teams. ScrumMaster is new, the Product Owner is a consultant, and also new to this team. Most of the team members are joined recently by this team. Some of the team members are subject matter experts and they have deep domain expertise in the system. The organization is making to develop a product that will solve a complex customer problem. The concept is not yet established. The product owner is also not too certain how the product will be expanding and introduced into the ecosystem where the data will be obtained and dispatched. The complete system is emerging. There is too much turmoil at the team level including the product architecture level. Everyone prefers to contribute and monopolize the meeting. The ideas are widely divergent, and we do not get to any conclusions. The team is a global team with many nationalities working with diverse cultures and backgrounds. You are the team coach for this team. Leadership is calling for help to uphold the team to traverse this perplexed state. Few team members are from the conventional world, and few team members know agile ways of performing.
What are the few steps you will start to reinforce the team in this forming stage?
What is your vision for this performing state?
What activities are you thinking of for the 3-month timeline?

Case study 11:

Ram is the team leader and manager for an old team that is taking care of the product, which is the center of the business transaction. The system takes care of everyday transactions and reconciliation. There are 40 people work in this team.

The system is primitive and outdated, and the team is struggling hard to maintain the system. But there are fractures in the team as well as the system.

There are many issues in the team.

Most of the time, when many incidents take place, Ram loses his emotional control to fix the issue faster as every second’s cost is huge. As Ram as a leader is terrified, team members follow it.

Ram’s task accomplishment, the ritual of role, interpersonal relationships, and power, all are at stake.

Ram is supposed to show how to contribute constructively by taking care of key details, and by showing up to the wider purpose of the company, but it is not the case. Ram could not establish a sense of shared credit with others for achievements and likewise could not present an obsession with learning from impediments.

Ram is, as a leader, not competent to clarify boundaries between responsibilities, both horizontally and vertically. Most of the time, he is micromanaging. Ram cannot make sure that systems and procedures are designed by the people who use them, and all join in learning from others’ successes and failures in handling complex tasks. Ram turns an ignorant eye when people bend or ignore rules, formal channels, and procedures. It creates turbulence in the team. Team members are not able to share sensitive information about their personal encounters; are not apt to share with others. Which creates disturbance among team members. Ram is not accessible most of the time and does not provide enough attention to the team’s needs.

You are the team coach for this team. What coaching stunts will you create for this team to improve team performance?


Sunday, September 5, 2021

Leadership Assessment Points

 

Leadership Assessment Points

From the book, We Can Lead- A Guidebook of Personal Leadership and Self-Coaching , Page no 568



Please study these points and think of an action plan against all these points, where you are now, and what you choose to do to improve those gaps?

Leading Self: Please Rank

1. I have my Purpose clearly defined, and I am constantly examining my Purpose? Rate 1-5 scale, 5 is the Highest. 1
2. I am driven by my
Value and belief. I can rate my value-driven progress at? Rate 1-5 scale, 5 is the Highest. 3
3. I am
Passionate to attain my purpose and thoroughly working on it? Rate 1-5 scale, 5 is the Highest. 5
4. How far am I to reach the
Self Actualization state? Rate 1-5 scale, 5 is the Highest. 4
5. I am constantly monitoring my
Resilience status and I can rate my state is at? Rate 1-5 scale, 5 is the Highest.
6. I am
Self-driven, and I know how to re-energize myself. I can rate my Motivation state is at? Rate 1-5 scale, 5 is the Highest.
7. I am always
Optimist and learn from my Setback. I can rate my Positivity state is at? Rate 1-5 scale, 5 is the Highest.
8. I invariably seek for
New Ways of working. I can rate my Growth mindset state is at? Rate 1-5 scale, 5 is the Highest.
9. I am always
Curious and ask powerful questions to discover the unknown. I can rate my competence to discover the unique thing is at? Rate 1-5 scale, 5 is the Highest.
10. I am learning anything very rapidly with
Deliberate practice. I can rate my learning ability? Rate 1-5 scale, 5 is the Highest.
11. I continually monitor my
Self-state and refine, I invariably look into my Ego and cultivate, I look into my mental Bias and review. I can rate my mental inspection frequently exercise? Rate 1-5 scale, 5 is the Highest.
12. I am reviewing
Courage state at a certain interval. I take action to overcome the limitation. I can rate my mental inspection frequently exercise? Rate 1-5 scale, 5 is the Highest.
Total


Leading Others: Please Rank

1. I am Empathetic to my companions. I am continuously developing my empathetic skill; I can rate myself at 1-5 scale at? 5 is the Highest
2. I ensure I Trust my companions, I am credible and Trustable, I am continually working on these skills, I can rate myself at 1-5 scale at? 5 is the Highest
3. I Engage my companions, I energize, empower, and encourage my team members, I can rate myself at 1-5 scale at? 5 is the Highest
4. I Coach my companions, I am constantly refining my coaching skills, I can rate myself at 1-5 scale at? 5 is the Highest
5. I am cognizant of Social skill, behavior science, I am working on this to build up my social intelligence, I can rate myself at 1-5 scale at? 5 is the Highest
6. I am great a Collaborator, I am the chief catalyst for a collaborator, I can rate myself in 1-5 scale at? 5 is the Highest
7. I am excellent at Change management, I am a change agent, I work on this topic to strengthen myself, I can rate myself in 1-5 scale at? 5 is the Highest
8. I ensure I create Psychological Safe heaven at the organization, I welcome feedback and take action to enhance my competency, I can rate myself in 1-5 scale at? 5 is the Highest
9. I strive for winning the Heart and mind of my companions, I can rate myself in 1-5 scale at? 5 is the Highest
10. I am a storyteller and I Facilitate, Influence better my companions though this approach, I can rate myself in 1-5 scale at? 5 is the Highest
11. I am Adaptable with the changing scenarios, I am improving, I can rate my current state in the 1-5 scale at? 5 is the Highest
Total



Leadership Skills & Tools: Please Rank

1. How do you want to rate your Ambition skill on the 1-5 scale? 5 is at the Master level?
2. How do you want to rate your “Willingness to work hard” skill on the 1-5 scale? 5 is at the Master level?
3. How do you want to rate your Enterprise skill (Creativity, Problem-solving, Teamwork, Communication, strategic thinking ...) on the 1-5 scale? 5 is at the Master level? 3
4. How do you want to rate your Astuteness skill on the 1-5 scale? 5 is at the Master level? 4
5. How do you want to rate your Ability to “Stick to It” skill on a 1-5 scale? 5 is at the Master level?
6. How do you want to rate your capacity for Lucid writing skills on the 1-5 scale? 5 is at the Master level?
7. How do you want to rate your Imagination skill on the 1-5 scale? 5 is at the Master level?
8. How do you want to rate your ability to spot the opportunity skill on the 1-5 scale? 5 is at the Master level?
9. How do you want to rate your Enthusiasm skill in the 1-5 scale? 5 is at the Master level?
10. How do you want to rate your Capacity to speak Lucidly skill on a 1-5 scale? 5 is at the Master level?
11. How do you want to rate your Single Mindedness skill on a 1-5 scale? 5 is at the Master level?
12. How do you want to rate your willingness to take risk skills on the 1-5 scale? 5 is at the Master level?
13. How do you want to rate your Ability to take decision skills on the 1-5 scale? 5 is at the Master level?
14. How do you want to rate your Curiosity skill on the 1-5 scale? 5 is at the Master level?
15. How do you want to rate your Empathy skill in the 1-5 scale? 5 is at the Master level?
16. How do you want to rate your Skill with Numbers on the 1-5 scale? 5 is at the Master level?
17. How do you want to rate your Capacity for abstract thought skills on the 1-5 scale? 5 is at the Master level? 
18. How do you want to rate your Integrity skill in the 1-5 scale? 5 is at the Master level?
19. How do you want to rate your Ability to administer efficient skill in the 1-5 scale? 5 is at the Master level?
20. How do you want to rate your Analytical ability skill in the 1-5 scale? 5 is at the Master level?
21. How do you want to rate your Resilience skill on a 1-5 scale? 5 is at the Master level?
22. How do you want to rate your Open-mindedness skill on the 1-5 scale? 5 is at the Master level?
23. How do you want to rate your Adaptability skill in the 1-5 scale? 5 is at the Master level?
24. How do you want to rate your Learning ability skill in the 1-5 scale? 5 is at the Master level?
25. How do you want to rate your team engagement, empowerment skills on the 1-5 scale? 5 is at the master level?


Evaluate your “Scorecard” and see how often you are following a good process. 

When you achieved Mastery in all these areas your followers will claim you as a Level 5 leader!

AN AWESOME LEADER= f (LEADING SELF, LEADING OTHERS, TOOLS & SKILLS)



Saturday, August 28, 2021

Coaching Book which has helped me a lot?



I have been reading a book for the last few days. The name of the book is

The Tao of Coaching: Boost Your Effectiveness at Work by Inspiring and Developing Those Around You by Max Landsberg

This best-selling classic was originally published by HarperCollins in 1996, and is practical, pragmatic, and - like most perfect ideas - seems to be presenting the obvious.

This book is written like a short story and aimed at managers who choose to develop themselves as coaches and mentors.

It gives brief and precise information about the coaching process, the motivation of employees, earning trust as a coach, and mentoring.

It is an incredibly short read, we can finish the book in a couple of hours.

The reader observes the progress of a young manager, Alex, as he strolls his progress through an organization, learning valuable coaching lessons along the way.

Each chapter focuses on a specific area of coaching, which is then summarized in a textbook format at the end of the chapter.

This book has just 117 pages! an extremely simple and marvelous book for Coaching.

Awesome book about coaching others. The practices may be useful for coaching our self as well. The volume is magnificent because of several reasons:

1. It is brief. Really. 117+ pages about everything we require about coaching.

2. It is intensely practical - each chapter has tested and “hands-on” suggestions we can implement in our career.

3. It is descriptive - each chapter has an awesome before-picture which sets up the reader’s desire for the later chapter. And what is indeed more magnificent - the book is one story about a gentleman in a company and his challenges throughout his career. Good dialogues and stories will make us remember.





Take-Aways

Good coaching means enabling employees to reach at results with direction, not instructing them what to look at.

Coaching yields pay off to the coach, consisting of a better customer and client relationships, a stronger team, a better ardent following, and enhanced self-awareness.

Effective feedback sticks to specific observable facts according to the acronym “AID”: “Actions,” their “Impact” and the “Desired” outcome.

Organize your coaching session according to the GROW acronym: “Goal, Reality, Options, Wrap up.”

Tailor your coaching style to fit an employee’s “skill and will to accomplish the task.”

Determine what factor most motivates your employee and build on it.

Focus your coaching on the Organization's strategic and operational objectives.

If you are being coached, don’t ever get defensive, just express gratitude, and do what the coach says.

Take “voluntary, visible, irrevocable, and specific” steps to accomplish your goal.

When coaching higher-ups, remain positive for the initial few sessions.

20 Lessons

1. “You Can’t Be a Leader Without a Following”

2. “Ask Questions – Don’t Just Tell”

3. “Receiving Feedback Means Active Listening”

4. “Coaching Also Benefits the Coach”

5. “Guide – Don’t Judge – When Coaching”

6. “Organize Your Coaching Sessions Well – Start in the Correct Direction”

7. “Great Teams Overcome Differences in Styles of Working”

8. “Overcome Your Coaching Blocks, or You Will Never Delegate”

9. “Instant Payoff’ Coaching Can Work, Though Only If Delivered Well”

10. Evaluate “Will, Not Just Skill”

11. When an Employee Hesitates, “First Build Trust”

12. “You Can’t Motivate Others if They Can’t See You”

13. “Take Time to Anticipate Cultural Differences”

14. “Know How to Set Up Teams Well”

15. “Use the Power of Questions that Reframe”

16. “Coaches Work with Observable Facts, Not Just ‘Gut Feel’’’

17. “Providing ‘Upward’ Feedback to the Boss Can Have Its Benefits”

18. “Become Eloquent in the Language of Setting Goals”

19. “Mentor Someone and Be Mentored”

20. “The Effects of Your Coaching Can Be Even More Powerful than You Imagine”

Please add if I have missed anything. Let us follow through and create an impact in people's life.

Saturday, February 6, 2021

Why High-performance teams are self-discipline?



Al teams that have achieved high performance for a long time, are default self-disciplined.

Why ?

Let us learn from few famous quotes

All the self-disciplined teams are naturally self-disciplined.

They have become so over a period of time with great exercise

“Self-discipline equates to self-control. Your ability to control yourself and your actions, control what you say and do, and ensure that your behaviors are consistent with long-term goals and objectives is the mark of a superior person.” Brian Tracy

High-performance team members have self control themselves for the bigger achievement and goals.

“I think self-discipline is something, it’s like a muscle. The more you exercise it, the stronger it gets.” Daniel Goldstein

High-performance team members have built their mental muscle over a period of time

“Self-discipline is an act of cultivation. It requires you to connect today’s actions to tomorrow’s results. There’s a season for sowing a season for reaping. Self-discipline helps you know which is which.” – Gary Ryan Blair

A high-performance team does act of cultivation

“Self-discipline begins with the mastery of your thoughts. If you don’t control what you think, you can’t control what you do. Simply, self-discipline enables you to think first and act afterward.” Napoleon Hill

High-performance team members have good control over their thoughts

“Self-discipline is a form of freedom. Freedom from laziness and lethargy, freedom from the expectations and demands of others, freedom from weakness and fear – and doubt. Self-discipline allows a person to feel his individuality, his inner strength, his talent. He is the master of, rather than a slave to, his thoughts and emotions.” H. A. Dorfman

High-performance team members are free to exercise their inner strength and become better

“Self-discipline is the ability to make yourself do what you should do, when you should do it, whether you feel like it or not.” – Elbert Hubbard

High-performance team win their self first

“Self-discipline is doing what needs to be done when it needs to be done even when you don’t feel like doing it.” Anonymous

A high-performance team does what is needed to be done

“A great way to develop self-discipline is to make it a habit to do the things you should be doing when you feel the laziest. Every time you feel really lazy, do the opposite of what you feel like doing.” Anonymous

A high-performance team does what is essential to be done

“I think self-discipline is something, it’s like a muscle. The more you exercise it, the stronger it gets.” Daniel Goldstein

The high-performance team become high performance by doing great things for a long time

“Self-discipline is that mental state of commitment, which gets you performing an activity regardless of your feelings.” Anonymous

“Self-discipline is a self-enlarging process.” – M. Scott Peck

A high-performance team is in self enlarging process

“Self-control is the key to self-esteem and self-confidence.” – Laurance McGraw V

A high-performance team self control themselves all the time

“In reading the lives of great men, I found that the first victory they won was over themselves…self-discipline with all of them came first.” – Harry S. Truman

High-performance team win their self first

“Discipline is built by consistently performing small acts of courage.” – Robin Sharma

A high-performance team demonstrate courage in every moment

“Discipline is the ability to control our conduct by principle rather than by social pressure.” – Glenn C. Stewart

The high-performance team follow their principle

“Self-respect is the fruit of discipline; the sense of dignity grows with the ability to say no to oneself.” – Abraham J. Heschel

Every high-performance team members respect themselves first

“We don’t have to be smarter than the rest; we have to be more disciplined than the rest.” – Warren Buffett

High-performance team members are high performer as they are more disciplined.

“Discipline is the silent force at work that breeds success. It requires only one thing; that you sacrifice time in things you enjoy.” – Anonymous

High-performance team members enjoy what they do

“Never believe a promise from a man or woman who has no discipline. They have broken a thousand promises to themselves, and they break their promise for you.” – Matthew Kelly

High-performance team members are committed and careful about their team members commitment

“Discipline is the bridge between goals and accomplishment.” – Jim Rohn

The discipline team set the goal and accomplish those, else they have not yet disciplined themselves

“Self-discipline is about controlling your desires and impulses while staying focused on what needs to get done to achieve your goal.” – Adam Sicinski

The high-performance team controlled their desire and impulses

“Discipline yourself to do the things you need to do when you need to do them, and the day will come when you will be able to do the things you want to do when you want to do them.” – Zig Ziglar

The high-performance team do what they want to do

“All successes begin with self-discipline. It starts with you.” – Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson

Every individual of the self-disciplined team disciplined

“A disciplined mind leads to happiness, and an undisciplined mind leads to suffering.” – Dalai Lama

The high-performance team are full of Happiness

With self-discipline, most anything is possible.” – Theodore Roosevelt

A high-performance team make everything possible

“Self-command is the main discipline.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson

High-performance team members have their command on their own self

“Without self-discipline, success is impossible, period.” – Lou Holtz

High-performance team design themselves for success

“Great leaders always have self-discipline -without exception.” – John C. Maxwell

All team members in the high-performance team are leaders and they are self-disciplined

Success is nothing more than a few simple disciplines, practiced every day.” – Jim Rohn

High-performance team practices daily small discipline like daily standup meeting etc

“Discipline really means our ability to get ourselves to do things when we don’t want to.” – Arden Mahlberg

The high-performance team does what they want to do.

In your coaching engagement do you find such traits among team members? What action we can take to ensure such traits established?

Saturday, December 19, 2020

We Can Lead Book

 These 600 pages volume were composed over several years of exploration and reflection to assure that this volume encompasses enough articles for everyone who are willing to scale their leadership skills. When we comprehend this book’s topics, we will set up ourselves to develop into a stronger leader. Please have a look




Saturday, December 12, 2020

120+ copies sold

 
Thanks to all my readers, every day almost one copy of "We Can Lead" is able to sell. So far in 6 months of the existence of this book, ~120+ copies have been sold!! Gratitude to all my well-wisher colleagues for making this book famous. Whoever is reading this book, please compose a few words about this book on Amazon. Help me to help the True Agile Leaders to perform outstandingly in their career endeavors.

Friday, December 11, 2020

 Managing Emotional Health:

One of the essential parameters for team performance is ability to deal with emotional balance in the office environment.

What is emotion?

An emotion is a brief conscious experience that is identified by profound mental activity.

Emotions can generate thoughts that can make you physically feel something in your body, and emotions can make your body make you feel something in your mind by influencing the thoughts that you could have.

A feeling that results in physical and psychological changes that influence our behavior.

Feeling bad does not mean that things are bad, and feeling good does not mean that everything is wonderful. It is a translation of a feeling.

Negative emotions in the workplace can emerge because employees perceive that their opinions and ideas are not being picked up and acknowledged.

Emotions should not control your thinking, your thinking should control your emotions. Emotions are feelings, and feelings are not a definitive measurement of what is good, bad, right or wrong, because feelings are emotions, and emotions are not one of the individual senses, so they are not a mechanism that can be used to determine reality.

Emotions can motivate us to respond to situations. Our emotions may instruct us about our circumstances and the environment we are in, which supports us respond accordingly.

Emotions can convey significant messages to those around us. They may explain to others how we are feeling and what we require in a given situation.

If we look sad, for example, we are telling others that we require assistance.

If we are angry, we are signaling to others that they have crossed our boundaries.

Understanding another individual’s emotions involves much more than just listening to their uttered messages.

It involves being attentive to the non-verbal emotional messages being conveyed.

Think of a situation where you had to speak to someone who was distressed. Describe the situation.

What verbal messages (words) did the person convey?

Empathizing with employees – being able to establish yourself in their emotional ‘shoes’ – can be a significant step toward finding out.

A fundamental component of empathy is the ability to mirror others nonverbally. We can teach ourselves to become more empathetic by mirroring the body positions, posture, tone, volume, gestures, and facial expressions of others.

Because every individual has distinct needs and views, negative emotions in the workplace can never be averted totally.

Effective listening can aid managers in better problem-solve and generate solutions that come closer to meeting everyone’s needs.

When you acknowledge a worker’s perspective, it can deliver an effective signal that although you may or may not agree, and may or may not take action subsequently, you have heard the viewpoint and are taking it into consideration.

Practice acknowledging workers’ ideas and requests.

Workers may not be comfortable providing feedback unless called for it.

Even then, many may hesitate, suspecting that the call for feedback may not be fully genuine and that they may anger managers by speaking out. One approach to avoiding negative emotions in the workplace is to safeguard that workers feel that their feedback is valued and respected. Offering and accepting feedback can help establish effective relationships between managers and workers. This makes it effective for managers to actively elicit feedback whenever opportunities present themselves.

Make a point of touching base with each individual who works under your supervision. Ask them if there is anything you could do that could be helpful to them or improve the way they are able to do their job.

The way we feel about or react to individuals in the workplace is impacted by our explanations of their behavior.

When it comes to ourselves, we are much more likely to find external explanations for negative behavior and internal explanations for positive behavior.

We engage in listening to understand when we genuinely seek to figure out not just what individuals say, but also what they actually mean. When workers are distressed or dealing with mental health issues, it is not unusual for them to say things that do not really reflect what they truly mean.

Giving someone the safety and the space to express and then clarify or amend what they express can give you a much better chance of understanding their perspective.

Asking open-ended questions to solicit additional information and refraining from interrupting can promote communication better.

Communication and interaction in the workplace are complex and demanding, and it requires substantial energy to maintain a standard that reflects our goals. It can take place that in our minds we have the best intentions, but our behavior is not quite able to keep up.

When we interact with a distressed employee, it is natural to try to understand what is motivating their negative emotions and reactions. We can often be quite accurate when ascertaining the causes of and contributors to other people’s positive emotional states. One of the traps we may fall into, however, when dealing with negative emotions in the workplace, is making simplistic and judgmental interpretations.

Judgmental interpretations are generally inaccurate, and practically always completely useless. Taking the time to develop a non-judgmental understanding of workers, their behaviors, and their reactions to situations are pivotal to dealing with them adequately.

Reflective (or active) listening can be an effective communication method that involves the following two elements:

1. Listening to and understanding what workers are saying, thinking, and feeling.

2. Reflecting and paraphrasing the feelings, thoughts, and opinions we hear back to the other person in our own words, to make sure we have understood their message correctly.

In order to more precisely understand employees’ messages, it helps managers to not only pay attention to what a worker is expressing but also to read non-verbal signals.

Reflective listening can be fundamental for effective communication and effective workplace relationships:

- It can help establish rapport and respect.

- It can encourage understanding between individuals.

- It can demonstrate recognition and acknowledgment, which may prompt others to continue communicating and share their experiences, problems, and feelings more candidly.

- It can provide reassurance that someone is willing to support and to view things from another perspective.

- It can help avoid conflicts and misunderstandings.

- It can help reduce defensiveness, resentments, and false assumptions that occur through misunderstanding.

When we observe a worker who is distressed (e.g., owing to personal problems, mental health difficulties, coworker conflicts, performance issues), we may encounter a diversity of emotions ourselves: fear, anger, frustration, guilt, pity, or helplessness.

It is absolutely reasonable to have these emotional reactions, but they can interfere with our ability to effectively respond to a distressed worker.

Our own emotions can have an influential impact on our attention, perception, thoughts, and behavior. Emotions can be the motivating force behind our actions and can determine whether we respond effectively (by providing assistance or support) or less effectively (by avoiding a situation).

All these whatever describe above we can try and mature ourselves as a team member to deal with an emotional state as a manager or as an employee at a workplace. It takes a lot of practice over a period of time to strengthen emotional dealing. 

Saturday, December 5, 2020

Building Agile OKR for a Tribe, an Example



How can we gear up for the forthcoming period by using OKR?

OKR is Objective and Key Results.

OKRs have two vital parts: The objective we choose to accomplish and the key results, which are the way we measure achieving the objective.

OKRs is to fix a definite business issue team is facing.

OKRs should be translated from the strategy, drive the achievement of the vision, and be in alignment with the overall mission.

An objective is a concise statement summarizing an explicit qualitative goal designed to drive the organization forward in the desired direction.

Basically, it asks, “What do we want to do?”

A Key result is a quantitative description that measures the accomplishment of a given objective. They are not tasks, they represent results.

If the objective is to asks, “What do we want to do?” the key result is to asks, “How will we recognize if we’ve reached our objective?”

Objectives and key results are the yin and yang of goal setting. Two sides of a coin.

Objectives are the substance of inspiration and distant perspectives. Key results are more mundane and metric-driven.

The challenge, and ultimately value, of key results, is in compelling a team to quantify what may appear to be unsure or ambiguous words in the team objective.

We must balance with key results is creating them difficult enough to force an acceptable arrangement of intellectual sweat to accomplish, but not so challenging as to discourage the teams because they appear impossible

More frequent goal setting has a positive impact on financial results. Deloitte reports that companies that set quarterly goals were nearly four times more likely to be in the top quartile of performers.

Google divides its OKRs into two sections, committed goals, and stretch goals.

Committed objectives are tied to Google’s metrics: product releases, customers etc.

Stretch objectives reflect bigger-picture, higher-risk, more future-shifting ideas.

Through OKR, the team has to established alignment among all the various roles and align with other team's OKRs.

To apply OKR and start the Journey let us do a workshop to come up with Tribe Mission, Vision, and Strategy. OKRs are supposed to be a mix of bottom-up and top-down.

Build Tribe OKR. Each team within a Tribe can build and present their OKR. OKR workshop is the best activity to do inter-team collaborations and minimize dependencies. 

OKR for Tribe Lead:

Objectives: Ensure all the product release for all the customers are happen on time with quality and expected satisfaction

Key results:
Ensure > 90% end-users’ collaboration
Ensure >4 end-users’ satisfaction rating
Ensure >95% features acceptance in each release
Ensure 0 defects in each release
Ensure >4 team satisfaction
Ensure <5% attrition in Tribe

OKR for Scrum Team:

Objective: Deliver all the 4 releases planned for this year

Key Results:
Deliver 10 key major features in each release.
Deliver all the 10 features in each demos to collect feedback.
Complete quality target with 0 defects.
Ensure end-users’ satisfaction with greater than 4 from 1 to 5 scale, 4 being the highest
Product acceptance has increased >80%

Objective: Ensure maximizing team happiness and best learning experience for the whole year

Key Results:
100% collaboration in all the challenging assignment
Achieve >4 scores in team happiness index
Achieve >4 scores in best learning expansion
File at least 2-4 patents from the team
Write at least 2-4 technical papers in various journal

OKR for Scrum Master:

Objective: Ensure all the scrum team members are followed by the scrum practices to ensure smooth value delivery

Key Results:
100% coaching for all the scrum events
Ensure end-user satisfaction with greater than 4 from 1 to 5 scale, 5 being the highest
4-5 new ideas for improvements in retro meeting
100% end-user participation in product co-creation

OKR for Product Owner:

Objective: Deliver all 4 releases planned for this year with all the required features

Key Results:
Ensure end-user satisfaction with greater than 4 from 1 to 5 scale, 5 being the highest
Achieve 100% end-user participation in product co-creation
Ensure end-users acceptance grows >90%
Ensure Product features usages grows >90%
100% Support team to discover product features and customer personas

OKR for a People Manager:

Objective: Ensure all the required skills and capabilities are 100% available within the team

Key Results:
Ensure skills gaps are addressed within a minimal timeline
Ensure several learning events happen within a team for a month
Build learning backlog with many items collected from feedback and improvement items
Ensure technical capabilities are growing continuously, technical capability in a team is >3 in 1-5 scale
Ensure team and end user’s satisfactions are >4 in 1-5 scale.
Ensure <5 % attrition in Tribe

One of the biggest strengths of OKRs is their emphasis on a shorter cycle.

More frequent review cycles lead to rapid learning, increased opportunities to make progress, and even a feeling of winning at work

Monitor OKRs: We don’t set OKRs as a yearly target and review at the end of the year!!, but must monitor those during the each quarter. Let us Score our OKRs and communicate the results with the entire organization.

OKRs do not expire with the completion of the work. It needs ongoing review and refines dynamic changes happening.

Here are some retrospective questions for closing out an OKR cycle:
Did I take care of all of my objectives? If so, what helped me with my progress?
If not, what hindrances did I come across? What action I should take?
If I were to rewrite an objective accomplished so far, what would I revise?
What have I learned that might transform my approach to the next cycle’s OKRs?