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Articles

How to build walls in place of bridges?

Walls serve the purpose of a border, a structure for bearing the weight of what may come later. Walls create tribes, silos and gated communities. Opportunity for something precious to breed in secret.

Bridges try bringing tribes together. Help preserve the purpose of sharing and caring beyond boundaries. Opportunity to collaborate, optimise effort and maximise benefits.

Every meeting is an opportunity. Either to build a wall to safe-guard or a bridge to expand. If you feel threatened, you raise the wall. If you are in a mood to expand, you add a few more tiles to the bridge. If you have nothing to offer, there’s little you can earn through meetings. Every dull meeting is a wasted opportunity.

You are busy every hour of the day. When meetings occupy your day, you tend to delegate. First step towards building a wall in place of a bridge. Person attending on your-behalf is there to safe-guard. That’s what they believe. People on the other-side think the same. Purpose served. The wall gets its height. More job for the organiser to get them up-to-speed and later to manage the damage. When you step-in for what you are, walls get broken and bridges emerge. Less job of breaking. More for the making. Good for all.

When you delegate, make sure you delegate decision-making not attendance. Choose those who know the art of building bridges to represent you, your company and the purpose. Not those who can take notes and pass-it-on.

If you are the one organising, you know what to do. Get those who’s required. Say no to their virtual twins. If you are representing someone else, make sure you know why you are there. Prepare well and contribute to building bridges. You move-up and become remarkable.

Every meeting is an opportunity. Build a wall or a bridge. Not one in place of the other!

Is Startup Culture eating the Corporate Fabric?

We praise Startup Culture. We mean workplace for – creative problem solving, open communication and flat hierarchy. Builds comradeship. Provides opportunity to celebrate individuality through group success. Does this promise hold good when it sweeps corporate floors? Does it change the outfit but not the fabric? How’s it working for you?

One thing is clear. Startup Culture has changed the dress-code within Corporates. You are not stopped at the gate for wearing what you might in a Startup. So are the business titles, workspaces, initiatives. Job titles and pay grades are also entering the corporate corridors. Soon there will be changes in qualification of people, hiring terms and work packages. All good. But this is eating a few good things too… that’s the worry.

Big, Forever-startups introduced and mastered the art of Always-beta-culture. A promise that the product and services might get delivered broken, for a while. Works well for them in attracting investors, employees and partners. Customers are at the receiving end. If they are on-boarded-free or remain in free-tier, we know that they soon become the products. But if you are an individual-paid-customer, you are at risk of unprecedented changes. What you paid for may not exist tomorrow. If you happen to check late, you may not know what you had paid for. So are those hoping to build their business-castles on the moving platform. Large enterprises might have two other alternatives to bank-on.

The churn of products, services and companies is common within Startup ecosystem. Speed and Scale needs drive frequent changes and pivots. This might be good for the startups. But when big corporates mimic this, they have to be careful. Brands thrive on the trust and commitment factors. Deeper customer relationships and loyalty stem out of these attributes. Typical startup failures are not welcome when coming from corporates. This might threaten the pillars of decades of existence.

While adopting Startup Culture, it is important to stick the value system. Reinforcing freshness with new ways-of-working and quicker innovations is fine. The fabric of commitment makes corporates stand tall and weather better. Also, the stitching of governance and sustainable practices. While wearing Startup Dress, it is important to check how the fabric is changing. What it means to the company, customers and the ecosystem. Do what a startup does. Build and test MVP, in all areas – before going-full-hog.

Every company is important to keep the world ticking well. Many lives and livelihoods depend on each one of them. It is important to be cautious while embracing the new. Call it fiduciary responsibility or basic human need. While you are part of sweeping the Startup Culture within your company, watch what you are cleaning and what you are keeping….

Always beta is fine as long as you don’t hang someone else’s dreams!

Putting a price tag on your work

There’s a price for everything. That’s true. Someone is paying in cash or kind in every transaction. When we bartered with only need as the basis, it might have been simple. You get this for that, because we both need what we don’t have or I can’t live with what I have.

Some wisemen decided this is not fair. What’s the fun without some imbalance. So we got a common denominator – money. One that started as means to measure turned itself into the measure of worth. If you don’t know what your work is worth, may be you are not worthy. Or more you price your work, it might become worthy and so are you.

A lot of science, technology and experience has evolved to price a thing. People follow a variety of strategies around pricing and using price as a bait, a reward and in some cases a chain. How does this work when it comes to your work. Are you getting paid what you are worth or what your work is worth?

In most of the cases, you hire for potential and pay for performance. Unfortunately, both of them fail the test of common understanding and measurement. People question – what’s the use of potential when performance is not upto the mark! So, the worth get’s reduced and so is the price over time. Young people then start looking for a restart. Since you may not get a chance in the same company, you jump!

Every company that’s hunting for talent, is looking for potential as judged by what you show on CV++. Since they are desperate, you get your price matched or improved than expected. It shows their desperation and not your worth. But we assume we are worthy and move-on. Until you hit another cycle when work gets measured for its worth as per the price-tag. Spiral continues till you get tiered or market moves on.

As you get old in the system and reach the middle-management-cadre, new reality emerges. You are now required to measure the worth of work and pay! You do what you feel is the best to keep your worth and move on. Till the crises becomes unmanageable. How to measure the worth of your work as a manager? A big question and a lot of defensive answers. But have you tried answering this in-front-of-a-mirror, in a closed room? Give it a try.

I ask this question to all probable CEOs of our ventures. Tell me what’s your price tag and how do you make it worthy? Some of them tell me standard answer which points to their achievements in the past. Some of them want me to fix all the issues and inefficiencies they had in life so far. Only a few tell me how they are going to make it worthy. We ask them to break-it-down to pieces they can measure in first 90 days. We know there’s no correct answer. But interest to find and prove their worth, makes the game more interesting. That’s the good-will they build. We then work our way to agree a tag post 90 days review if they cut-it. Else, they get paid whatever they ask for for the 90 days of work. Only when they cut-it, they become the CEOs of the enterprise they will lead in performance.

We tried this method of allowing people to put a price-tag and proving their worth across levels. Works wonders at middle-to-senior-level. Those who don’t fit the bill, will anyways find their worth where they can or settle-in. But we have seen how serious contributors up their game and improve everyone.

What do you think? Isn’t this a nice talent to have – finding and living a worthy work life?