Time Management for Higher Productivity

Let me start this month’s mailer with a short story about a boy and his dad. Here it is:

A man came home from work late, tired and irritated, to find his 7-year old son waiting for him at the door.
'Daddy, may I ask you a question?'
 'Yeah sure, what it is?' replied the man.
 'Daddy, how much do you make an hour?'
 'That's none of your business. Why do you ask such a thing?' the man said angrily.
 'I just want to know. Please tell me, how much do you make an hour?'
 'If you must know, I make $50 an hour.'
 'Oh,' the little boy replied, with his head down. He made some calculations on his fingers and said,  'May I please borrow $20?'
The father was furious, 'If the only reason you asked that is so you can borrow some money to buy a silly toy or some other nonsense, then you go straight to your room and sleep. I don't work hard everyday for such childish silly things.'
The little boy’s heart was broken. He quietly went to his room with tears in his eyes and shut the door.

The man sat down and started to get even angrier about the little boy's questions. How dare he ask such questions only to get some money?
After about an hour or so, the man had calmed down and started to think:
Maybe there was something he really needed to buy with that $20 and he really didn't ask for money very often. The man went to the door of the little boy's room and opened the door slowly.

'Are you asleep, son?' He asked.
'No daddy, I'm awake,' replied the boy.
'I've been thinking, maybe I was too hard on you earlier' said the man. 'It's been a long day and I took out my aggravation on you. Here's the $20 you asked for.'

The little boy sat straight up, smiling. 'Oh, thank you daddy!' he yelled. Then, reaching under his pillow he pulled out some crumpled up currency notes and coins.

The man saw that the boy already had money and started to get angry again.
'Why do you want more money if you already have some?' the father grumbled.

'Because I didn't have enough, but now I do,' the little boy replied.
'Daddy, I have $50 now. Can I buy an hour of your time? Please come home early tomorrow. I would like to have dinner with you.'
The father was crushed. He was speechless. He was humbled beyond his imagination. He put his arms around his little son with moist eyes, and he begged for his forgiveness.

This may be just a story but carries a great message for all of us. Why it happens? Because we are not able to manage our time well. Most of us are working hard in life. But we should not let time slip through our fingers without having spent some time with those who really matter to us, those close to our hearts. Our family that consists of our children, wife, parents and even siblings also deserve some time of ours. Our ancestors very rightly divided the 24 hrs in three equal parts. The first 8 hours are for self and we use that for about 6 to 7 hours for sleep and 1 to 2 hours for physical exercise, meditation and other morning routines. The second lot of 8 hours is for dedicated work and 3^rd set of 8 hours is for family, friends and society. 

This exact division may not be possible but the moral of the story is that we got to create a ‘Work Life Balance’ and for that we got to manage our 24 hours of time very efficiently. This is one resource that God has divided equally to all human beings, be it the CEO or a student, a politician or a policeman, a housewife or a maid. This is one resource that you can’t buy, borrow, steal or lend.  Time is one resource which once gone, never comes back. In fact they say ‘Time Is Money in Essence’. Despite that we all waste time. And then we say that we are short of time and a lot many things, we fail to do in time or they keep pending at home as well as at office and then the mental pressure starts building and causes stress followed by a lot many health problems

The fact is that most of us are leading a life full of pressures. Pressure for performance, pressure for promotion, pressure of peers, family, relatives and society at times. The pressure further increases when we find ourselves rushing against time to meet some targets. Time has no pity on our pathetic condition. Time is flying. So the only thing we can do is to manage our time well. We should waste less time on doing things that we have to do so that we have more time to do the things we want to do.

A lot many people work late in the offices. Sometimes it may be essential to incorporate last minute changes in a project report that needs to be submitted to the client next day morning. But wasting time during the day in gossip and spending extra hours during the evening, may create a great impression on some bosses but then you are proving to be less efficient person. Ask yourself: Who is more efficient? A person who finishes his/her job in eight hours or the one who finishes in 10 hours? According to me all those people who sit late in the office need mentoring by their bosses provided the bosses understand what I just said.

Don’t try to attempt to do each and everything yourself. That is a sure recipe for disaster. Learn to delegate. Learn to say ‘No” to a job that doesn’t belong to you at all, doesn’t interest you and it is not going to do any good for you even in the long term. And also dump a lot many superfluous activities with least priorities and don’t find even a mention in your ‘To Do List’. Be firm to say ‘No’ politely with a smile on your face to a lot many invitations that may not be of interest to you. You don’t have to be goodie- goodie all the time with all the people if you want a stress free life.

Some long and unnecessary meetings could be a great time waster. Keep your meetings short, crisp and to the point. You may refer to my monthly mailer of May, 2013 on this topic once again to reduce wastage of time due to meetings. These days unsolicited e-mails, phone calls from unknown and unscrupulous salesmen and social networking sites like Facebook have become great sources of time wastage. Unsubscribe from all those websites who keep sending you daily/weekly mailers about the launch of their latest products. You may get some relief from Bank Loan/Credit card callers if your register on the NDNC (National Do Not Call) registry by calling 1909 or visit www.ndnc.in for more details.

I am not against the social networking platforms like Twitter, Facebook or LinkenIn. But use them with great care and judiciously. There are people who spend hours and hours on these sites. You got to be disciplined while using these tools to get benefit from them and don’t let them become the master and you become a slave and your time usage and priority is dictated by them. Another big time waster is the addiction to the Idiot Box, the hundreds of channels on your TV can kill all the time at your disposal. One has to instill self discipline and use the remote of your TV judiciously and in fact ruthlessly to keep your TV in the off position most of the time.

Follow the basic ‘ABC of Communications’ principle in all your communications. It could be on phone, Facebook, an e-mail, a report or minutes of the meetings. ABC stands for ‘Accuracy, Brevity and Clarity’ in all your communications.  Use bullet points, wherever possible instead of using descriptive language. Sometimes you may be called to speak to an audience. Here also remember that long speeches become boring and are wastage of time of the speaker and the listeners too. An advice by Winston S. Churchill is very appropriate here. He said - "A good speech should be like a woman's skirt: long enough to cover the subject and short enough to create interest".

In nutshell, pay attention to accomplishment rather than activity. Be quick in taking decisions in life. Remember that too much analysis causes paralysis of organizations. Don’t procrastinate. It is a sure recipe of wastage of time and ultimate failure. Respect every minute at your disposal and make best use of it. Time is literally flying. 

Leadership @ the Lightning Speed

Some of you may be surprised at the heading. The reason for using this term is because I had the opportunity of working with some excellent bosses in the Navy who were great in taking quick decisions and I used to love that.  And I also came across some bosses in the Navy as well as in the corporate world who moved at the snail’s speed. They either never took any decision or took abnormally long time, got into too many deliberations before taking even a simple decision. Obviously, they were considered as lousy leaders.

I have been somehow very fast in taking decisions in my life. The credit for this goes to my college days, where my grooming took place as a student leader. And then I joined the Indian Navy. By and large, defence officers are considered to be quick in decision making. (Exceptions are always there). When the cannon shells and rockets are flying all around you in the battlefield, you don’t have the luxury of calling a meeting and then taking a decision as to how to retaliate. When a torpedo is detected by your Sonar approaching your ship, a quick decision by the Commanding Officer can make the difference between sinking or survival of your ship.  

Leadership at the Lightning Speed in the corporate world becomes even more relevant in the age of smart phones and internet. You may be travelling on business tour in Germany and still taking decisions based on a brief chat or an e-mail for a deal with a Chinese company. The employees love a leader or a manager who takes quick decisions. Such leaders command the respect of their subordinates and appreciation from all the stake holders of the company and their management styles are used as case studies in B-schools.

Leadership @ the Lightning Speed doesn’t mean hasty decisions or reactions to some events. It means immediate attention to the problem based on its importance and urgency, quick analysis based on thorough understanding and then the remedial action. Such leaders use their immense experience, wisdom and even gut feeling at times to come to a conclusion. Such leaders have the risk taking capability too. They are highly confident in their approach, their thinking and about their actions. They are men of integrity. They do what they say and they say what they think. There is absolute synchronization in their thinking, their words and their deeds.

A leader who believes in the concept of Leadership @ the Lightning Speed believes and trusts his people. They delegate responsibility and accountability along with authority. They are quick in their feedback to their managers and employees. They believe in rewards and recognition and that too in public.  Such leaders have a great tolerance for occasional mistakes but definitely not for the stupid ones. They are full of enthusiasm and energy and cultivate the ownership mentality in the minds their employees. They believe in empowering their teams and trusting them. Simplicity, Agility and Speed of Execution are their Mantras. They don’t clutter their mind with the unnecessary and unimportant while they are fully alert and aware about what matters for the growth of the organization. They don’t consume their energy and time on trivial issues.

The Lightning Speed Leaders expect their managers to be motivators and trainers and definitely not controllers. They have great aversion to too much of analysis that many times causes paralysis of the projects in hand. The words like fear and procrastination are not there in their dictionary. These leaders are great absorbers of the best practices pursued around the globe.  And they are great communicators of these best practices to their people. They follow the fundamental ABC of all communications i.e. Accuracy, Brevity and Clarity. Their comments are crisp and to the point. They are not prisoners of existing rules and use them as guidelines for the growth of the organization and are ever willing to change them if it is required in the journey from good to a great company.

They are a reservoir of abundant energy and they know the knack of transmitting this energy to their people. The one leader,  I admire a lot is Jack Welch, the ex GE boss who transformed GE to number one global organization in the 80s and 90s He used to say, ”Put the right people in the right jobs, give them the resources they need, give them the freedom to operate and in fact get out of their way”. He practiced ‘Leadership @ the Lightning Speed’ in the true sense.

(There are many more in the world and in India too who can come in this category. Who are those great leaders according to you? They could be from any discipline? I would be grateful if you can share at least one name with me and why do you put him/her in this category.)

Empowering Your Teams

It is a fact that leaders play a very important role in making great organizations. Mr Sridharan is considered as one of the greatest Indian leader in the field of management of great infrastructure projects. Konkan Railways and Delhi Metro are two examples that are quoted everywhere as the gift by Mr Sridharan to our country. But let us not forget that no organization can move ahead without energized, enthused and empowered employees. Many times it happens that despite having the best of the individuals in the organizations, they fail to achieve greater heights. This happens due to the lack of team effort and team bonding.

Good individuals are important for any organization. But the outcome from the combined effort of the team results in a level of performance that is greater than the input of each individual. So organizations achieve greater heights by creating workgroups/teams of individuals with diverse capabilities. These broad-based cross-functional teams consisting of members from different departments can be given various time bound projects from time to time. In such cases, Project Managers ensure that the skills of group members complement each other. These teams with specialists of different disciplines give rise to innovative ideas and creativity in the organizations.

The word team can be defined as follows:

• "A team is a small number of people with complementary skills who are committed to a common purpose, performance goals, and approach for which they hold themselves mutually accountable."

In simple words, the word Team means ‘Together Each one Achieves More’. This explanation itself tells a lot about the importance of Team Building and Empowering your Teams.

There are a few factors that are responsible for the success of any team. The first and foremost is the Effective Leadership. We have seen the excellent performance of Indian Cricket Team under the effective leadership of Dhoni. Some exceptions will always be there and if one goes into a bit of details about the Indian Cricket team when they performed miserably under the same captain, there were some reasons.

Every team will have a goal to achieve and should have a strategy to reach that target. Having decided the goal and strategy, three things are very important in order to succeed as a team: Clears Roles and Responsibilities of all team members, Open Communication within the teammates and a great speed of execution in modern times. Based on the roles and responsibilities of the team members, it is the duty of the leader to ensure that all members excel in their area and for that proper training and practice opportunities are provided to them.

All team members in a team should be self starters. They should own the overall goal of the team and specifically their part of the project. This happens when all team members feel that that they have been empowered to play their role with full freedom and responsibility. This happens only when the teams have achieved a certain level of maturity. When the new teams come into existence they pass through various stages of team formation.

They are:

1. Forming
2. Storming
3. Norming and
4. Performing

And the last stage can be called Adjourning when the team goal has been achieved. In the Forming stage, the role of the leader is a directing type, where he just gives precise instructions to the team members based on their skills and competency. In the storming stage, team members at times collide with each other when they perceive a threat to their own position in the team, may be based on some unfounded fears. During this phase, the leader has to behave like a coach and should try to sort out the differences between the team members. Next stage is the norming stage where the leadership is supposed to play a supporting role. By this time, it is expected that the team members know each other very well. They would have normalized their mutual problems and differences. They start accepting others despite some differences that still exist and even the minor idiosyncrasies of team members. The last stage of a team formation is the performing stage where team starts producing results. By this time the team is considered to have achieved maturity and is empowered and therefore the leader is expected to get into the delegation mode and focus on more important things in the organization.

Being a good teammate doesn’t mean that one has to be a ‘Yes man’. One should have the courage to differ but also the humility to accept the others’ view with an open mind. Your opinion should be totally devoid of selflessness and focused on the good of the team and the organization. Once a final decision has been taken by the leadership after a discussion or brain storming session, just go ahead with final decision in toto even if your personal views were different. Here we do assume that the team leader has no vested interest and is working in the interest of the organization.

The last point that I would like to mention is that a leader should try to create a culture of appreciation in his organization. Whenever, a leader has to praise his men, he should do so in public and if there is a requirement of reprimanding someone, it should be done in private, within the confines of the four walls of the cabin of the boss and never in front of the juniors and colleagues of the employee who is being admonished. We must realize the importance of establishing a strong and mutually beneficial bond between the manager / leader and the team and this will lead to PDC (Performance Driven Culture) in the organization through empowered employees.

Importance of EQ vs IQ

Intelligence Quotient is normally referred to establish how intelligent we are. The moment someone is said to have high IQ, it is assumed that he/she is a person blessed with high intellectual prowess and so the person is supposed to have higher ability to reason and tackle logic. But how helpful is a high IQ in order to succeed in life? If we know what to do in a particular situation but can’t do it because of fear, uncertainty, lack of conviction, commitment or any other reason? Many times you see that someone has a superior intellect but he/she can’t get along with people in his/her office or not even with their family members.  Management Gurus quote the example of chess master Bobby Fisher, who had an extremely high IQ of the level of 187 compared to the 160 of Albert Einstein. Yet, if you look at the personal and social life of Bob Fisher, he can’t be considered as a happy man as he had a lot many troubles with a lot many people and even the governments because of his inferior social skills.

Just like IQ (Intelligence Quotient), there is another very important aspect of a human being, and that is his/her EQ (Emotional Quotient), which measures the ability to use, comprehend, and control our emotions in positive and productive ways. EQ has mainly five dimensions:

1.     Self Awareness: It implies the ability to be aware of what you feel and how you feel about various things in life.   

2.     Self Management: It is the ability to manage one’s emotions and impulses. How we respond to different type of triggers in our day to day life.

3.     Self Motivation: It is the ability to motivate yourself and persist in the face of failures, obstacles and setbacks.

4.     Empathy: It is the ability to sense the feelings of others. It is the ability to put yourself in the others’ shoes and then see things from their perspective.

5.     Social Skills: It is the ability to understand the emotions of others and handle them in a socially acceptable, decent manner.

Although Bobby Fisher may be considered a giant as far as the IQ part is concerned and as a great chess player the world ever produced, yet he was a dwarf, he was a failure among the emotionally and socially well-adjusted people of his times.

There is a saying,

“A high IQ guarantees your success in school while a high EQ guarantees your success in life.”

Another difference between EQ and IQ is that we can always increase our EQ, but our IQ, more or less, remains constant as we mature.

“Anyone can become angry, that is easy. But to be angry with the right person, to the right degree, at the right time, for the right purpose, and in the right way, this is not easy.”

- Aristotle 384 BC-322 BC

What a great understanding about ‘Anger’? Eliminating Anger totally is very rare. The Indian history is full of references where the highest level of sages and ‘Rishis’ used to get fits of anger. At times, you have to just demonstrate ‘Anger’ to a person at office or at home, though at heart you may be actually ‘Cool’. Aristotle says that ‘This is not easy’ but it is not very difficult also if practiced with patience and resolve over a period of time.

One should be able to set your internal thermostat of anger as per your will and completely switch it off as per your will. The best is to avoid anger all together. Be cheerful, keep smiling. Controlled anger is not that bad but uncontrolled anger is the worst enemy of man.

The concept of Emotional Intelligence is very old but Daniel Goleman’s book Emotional Intelligence: Why It Can Matter More Than IQ published in 1995, popularized the concept of Emotional Intelligence.

Emotional Intelligence is very Important

Daniel Goleman wrote “Emotional-intelligence-based capabilities are twice as important for star performance as IQ and technical skills combined.”  He further wrote, “If your emotional abilities aren’t in hand, if you don’t have self-awareness, if you are not able to manage your distressing emotions, if you can’t have empathy and have effective relationships, then no matter how smart you are, you are not going to get very far.”

Today, in the net connected world, people are armed with smart phones, tablets and phablets and therefore are virtually on duty almost 24hrs. Pay packets have increased and so are the danger of losing a job and that has caused insurmountable anxiety, stress and uncertainty in our lives. The philosophy of ‘Survival of the Fittest’ in the corporate world at times creates unhealthy competition and makes people irritable and introduces friction among colleagues in the same organization/department. So, it is expected that in addition to coping with their heavy workload, employees in an organization must try to win the cooperation of their team mates also to lead a balanced and happy life. They should try to cultivate a culture of mutual appreciation and collaboration rather than criticism and collision. And this will be possible by the employees with higher EQ and not necessarily with high IQ.

Benefits of emotional intelligence, lead to achievement of excellence too and thus lead to increasing productivity and therefore profitability and also harmony in the workplace. It is believed that salespeople with higher emotional intelligence become better sales persons. Managers with higher EQ are comparatively better managers and the turnover of their staff is comparatively much less in their departments. Here are seven skills considered to be most essential for the emotionally intelligent people and each one of them has been explained a bit in the following paragraphs:

1.     Ability to be flexible.

2.     Ability to be optimistic.

3.     Ability to be empathetic.

4.     Ability to resolve conflicts.

5.     Ability to use humour to lessen stress.

6.     Ability to recognize and manage one’s emotions.

7.     Ability to connect with others using non verbal communications.

1. Ability to be flexible:  During tough negotiations, many times you don’t want to break the deal yet you don’t want to yield too much also. In such conditions one must remain flexible to avoid stalemates. Those with low emotional intelligence are bound to panic in the face of the unexpected and likely to take wrong decisions. Those with higher EQ are mentally prepared for the unexpected and continue to be calm and composed and use the challenge of the unexpected and come out with creative solutions acceptable to both the parties.

2. Ability to be optimistic: People with high EQ are optimistic even when faced with relentless pressure and very little chance for success while the average person may give up in despair. Just try to observe a few great leaders, great statesmen, great negotiators or great corporate leaders, you will find that they never give up. Because of their optimistic attitude, emotionally intelligent people are always hopeful and are willing to face any type of challenges in their life.

3. Ability to be empathetic: Empathy is the ability to place oneself in the shoes of the other person. Whenever, there is a huge gap in the understanding of any situation between two warring factions, just put yourself in the place of other party and then try to feel what you would have done or felt in that condition, you will realize that the gap in understanding immediately starts diminishing.  This is a major component of emotional intelligence.

4. Ability to resolve conflicts: The emotionally intelligent person believes in win-win situations and not “I win, you lose” philosophy. Therefore he acquires the ability to resolve conflicts in most of the situations in his personal as well as professional life. Many times you may not like the stand taken by the opposing party but your high EQ will ensure that you treat the other party with dignity and give him or her a face saving exit out of the complicated situation.  

5. Ability to use humour to lessen stress: The last two months of the financial year for the sales team are full of stress if you are lagging behind in your targets or when your progress is slow in a project and the deadline is approaching fast. The stress under such conditions wears heavily on our bodies, reducing clarity of mind and alertness and even leading to high blood pressure and breakdown of health. Here a person with a sense of humour will use his skills to lower stress, uplift emotions and rejuvenate the spirit of his/her team and make sure that they continue to give their best.

6. Ability to recognize and manage one’s emotions: Sometimes the situations take turn in such a way that you explode with anger. But later on you realize that things would have been better if you were able to control your anger at that critical juncture of dialogue/negotiations. Emotionally intelligent people understand the ramifications of such behaviour. They know that hostility breeds hostility and anger was always counterproductive. People with high EQ will generally be more successful in whatever they take up as they are able to manage or control their emotions under such highly pressurised situations.

7. Ability to connect with others using non verbal communications: It is said that 55% of your communication is through your body language, 38% of communication is through your tone, pitch and volume etc and only 7% is the verbal part. That means most of our communication is nonverbal during our negotiations or presentations. Exact meanings of the words become secondary and how we convey the message becomes more important. Emotionally intelligent people are aware of their own emotions and they are also aware of the emotions of those they are dealing with. They should have the ability to read others by their body language and so if you detect anger, confusion, or doubt in the mind of opposing party, wait until those unspoken issues indicated by their body language were resolved.  They also take full care that their own body language is in synch with what they want to convey.

If we are able to cultivate the above mentioned skills, our EQ will definitely improve that means our ability to perceive, control, and evaluate emotions will go up. It is strongly believed that we can win people, we can win their hearts, we can win their confidence without being aggressive or intimidating through emotional intelligence. Emotional Intelligence can become our key to success whatever we want to do in our life. I am of the strong opinion that emotional intelligence can be learned and strengthened, while there are some who claim that it is an inborn characteristic. A number of testing instruments have been developed to measure emotional intelligence, although the content and approach of each test varies. You can go to Google and try some of the tests to check your EQ and take appropriate actions thereafter. 

The Power of Positive Attitude

                                                  

Most of the religions in the world teach that when you get up in the morning, you say your morning prayers thanking God for giving us the opportunity to start another day.  This is the time when we seek blessings from the Almighty also. It is said that at this time in the morning if you give a strong suggestion to yourself that it is going to be a good day for you, it will be a good day. And if you are unsure, apprehensive and suggest yourself that it is going to be a bad day, then it actually becomes a miserable day for you irrespective of whether you religiously say your prayers or not.

You got to be positive about the day ahead of you. You got to be positive about the world around you. So start the day on a positive note. They say that the world around you is just your reflection. If you are good and polite, the world around you becomes polite and decent. And if you demonstrate a behaviour that is manipulative, wicked and dishonest, the world around you also seems the same way. So we got to demonstrate the positive attitude, all the time and every time. Think positive about the environment. Think positive about the people, about your friends and about your family members. If at all you have to be judgemental about anyone, let it be yourself and not others.

It is said that ‘It is your Attitude and not Aptitude that decides your Altitude’. For a moment it may look a bit strange. After all, we keep studying various subjects in schools and colleges like Physics, Chemistry, Economics or Mathematics or Biology etc. And there is a maddening competition to get higher grades.  Yes, it is true that the subject/domain knowledge is important to succeed wherever you go and whatever you do. But think of a situation where three MBA qualified girls with almost same grades and equally smart and good looking go for an interview in a big company and they need to hire just one of them. The interview board has just 15 to 20 minutes for each of the candidates. From their resumes, all the three look equally good. Now within this short period, who will get selected? The one, who is able to demonstrate her positive attitude during that brief interaction, the one who is able to prove that she is a ‘Go-getter’.

Attitude is the first step towards achieving Excellence. And Excellence is nothing but doing ordinary things in the most extra ordinary way so that everyone who sees the results says ‘Wow!’, however, simple job it may be. There are a total of four steps to achieve Excellence:

1. Attitude      2. Knowledge       3. Skills         4.  Habit

If you have the attitude, you will be able to acquire the knowledge to accomplish any job in an excellent manner. But knowledge alone is not good enough. You got to acquire the necessary skills to do the job. Do you know that most of the electronics engineers will not be able to repair a simple telephone or a TV at home. The reason is they have been taught about all the chips, ICs, circuitry etc . but they never acquired the skills to repair these electronics gadgets. And once you keep doing a job again and again, after sometime it becomes a habit and it becomes your second nature. Let us say that your mother/wife makes very tasty, excellent stuffed ‘Gobhi Paratha’ (Cauliflower stuffed Bread). She has the Attitude to make good ‘parathas’ for you and all others in the family. She acquired the knowledge long time back about all the ingredients and in what proportions to use them. Then she acquired the skills may be from her mother and then by making them again and again over so many years and now it has become a part of her habit to make good ‘parathas’. I am sure her ‘parathas’ are delicious, excellent every time and each time.

We all can achieve Excellence always by following these four steps: Attitude, Knowledge, Skills and Habit. And this starts with Attitude, and that is the Power of Attitude. I simplify this by saying that let AKSH be your Lakshya (Goal) if you wish to achieve Excellence in Life.

Meetings are a Must?

Meetings are a Must?                                                                    

When I conduct my workshops on ‘Time Management’ and ask the participants to list down the top 10 time wasters. Invariably, there is a mention of meetings and meetings as one of the top ranking time wasters. And as employees go up the seniority ladder in the organization, this monster called ‘MEETINGS’ eats away more and more of their time.  In all such cases, employees find themselves busy all the day. There is a lot of activity but accomplishment is probably meager and that leaves them dissatisfied at the end of the day.

Majority of you, who are reading this small article, must be thinking, ‘Yea! There have been umpteen number of times when I have sat through a meeting and said to myself, “what a waste of time yaar!, I could have done something better!”  But then the meeting was called by the boss himself. And you had little role to play in what was being discussed. During most of the meeting time, you are a mute spectator. You do contribute when Samosa and Tea/Coffee arrives ;-)

Meetings are in fashion. Any minor issue comes up, the boss calls the secretary ‘Call a Meeting’. According to me this is a global epidemic that is killing hours and hours of highly productive people by minutes and minutes. For the manager level employees, 40 to 50% of the time getting wasted in meetings is quite common and that leaves very little time for the actual work that needs to be done and that is most important for the growth of the company and even its survival. Let me hasten to add here that exceptions are always there. And if you as an individual or your organization is an exception, my heartiest congratulations to you and you may even stop reading here itself so that you don’t waste your further time in reading a few more irrelevant lines ;-) and instead just forward it to your friends who are the likely victims of this monster.

The question now arises that do we have a solution? And the good news is that there is a solution. Though there is no single formula or one shot doze for this malady but despite meetings being indispensable  it is possible to drastically reduce the time being wasted in meetings and use the same time constructively for the growth of your organization and for improving the quality of your life as a person and as a family person.

You must have observed that normally meetings expand to fill the time available for the meeting. If you set an hour for the meeting, people will use that full one hour regardless of the agenda and many times meetings are extended by a few minutes just because tea and snacks got delayed, though all the points as per the agenda were over ;-). So the important point here is that if you are the culprit, calling the meeting, ask yourself at least five times if the meeting is a must. Can it be avoided? Possibly, you can just call your deputy and sort out the matter face to face in may be 15 minutes and even take the opinion of another guy in between on phone on some tricky issue.

Once we start asking ourselves these questions like ‘Is this meeting a must?’ ‘Can a phone call to one or two persons sort out the issue?’ ‘Can I just get up and go to the adjoining cubicle for a quick clarification and even to the department in the next building to kill the issue?’, you will realize that the number of meetings will start reducing in your organization. And I assure you that you shall be able to reduce the number of meetings by almost 50%.

The regular ‘Status Update Meetings’ or ‘Briefing by the Boss or for the Boss’  waste a lot of valuable time, and majority of the people complain  that these meetings don’t help them get any work done. The junior people in the hierarchy spend a lot of time in preparing these briefs and status reports for the big boss. A large number of people remain busy for preparing for the next status update meeting/briefing. What a waste of time? Despite having the so called - ‘On Line Monitoring Systems’.

Long project meetings with duration of three or four hours at a stretch or sometimes even for the full day become boring and at times become counterproductive. The energy of the participants gets depleted, and they may make bad decisions or choices. While the outcome of all the business meetings should lead to commitment, focus and sound decisions by the participants. Official meetings should not be used as a platform for networking.

Have a meeting only if it is must. Sometimes you need a body of a lot many HODs to support a decision that has already been made. Do not use the platform of meetings with such large number of participants to make decisions. Let one person give a brief presentation about the problem and the plan of action that has already been discussed in detail at the lower levels and briefed to the concerned persons in one to one discussions. Just get a stamp of formal approval in this meeting and move ahead.

By now, we feel that 100% elimination of meetings is not possible and that is perfectly right but elimination of useless meetings to a large extent should be possible. We must also ensure that all meetings that are eventually held are fully productive and participants feel enlightened and delighted at the end of the meeting that it was time well spent. Here are the tips to manage the meetings in a more productive manner:

·Have Agenda. Never call a meeting without agenda.

·Invite only those who can contribute to the solution of the problem.

·People should come prepared for the meeting as per the agenda otherwise they are wasting their time and other’s time also.

·Always start the meeting dot on time. In order to send a message of concern for punctuality, the meeting starting time can be 4:27 pm instead of 4:30 pm

·The person calling the meeting him/herself should be absolutely punctual and then s/he gets the authority to tick the latecomers.

·Mobile phones should be in silent mode. Laptop can be used only by the person noting the minutes of the meeting directly on the laptop.

·Sometimes the participants have to use the laptops for sharing information that is being discussed in the meetings or project their part on the projector system for all to see.

·If the meeting is related to an ongoing big issue, the minutes of the last meeting should be read, action completed/not completed should be conveyed to those attending and then proceed.

·Meetings should be as short as possible even 15 or 10 minutes or in some cases 5 minutes too. Approximate duration of the meeting should be intimated along with the agenda. So the ending time is known to all. 

·Meetings should never be extended for tea and snacks to arrive. These arrangements should me made well in advance by the support staff.

·The person chairing the meeting should guide the entire meeting as per the agenda and shouldn’t allow any individual to hijack, divert or dominate meeting by frequent and endless conversation or interruption.

·The chairperson should ensure that someone is noting the minutes of the meeting and action points are assigned to some individuals with expected date of completion of those jobs.

·As the chairperson, you can always end a meeting a bit early if all the points have been discussed.

·The formal meetings should be held only for serious issues and therefore minutes should be formally sent to all concerned not later than 24 hours after completion of the meeting.

Saying ‘Total No’ to meetings is definitely not possible. They have their own importance and should be held whenever there is a need. But meetings for the sake of just meeting people or to discuss trivial issues need to be totally discouraged. And if the meetings are organized in a total professional manner following the tips given above, the organizations will save a lot of time and energy of its people and their efficiency and effectiveness will improve, leading to Business Excellence and therefore higher productivity and profitability.

Veerendra Jaitly

jaitly.iit@gmail.com

Dreams to Destination

We all have dreams. According to me, life without dreams will be boring. And nobody can stop anyone from dreaming. It is the birth right of every human being. God has given this beautiful gift to the human beings that they can dream. Here I am not talking about the dream that we see while sleeping but the dreams that don’t let us sleep; the dreams that we see during the day; the dreams that force us to work hard to achieve something big.

Dreams can be as big as your imagination. And there is no limit to our imagination. Napoleon wrote, "Whatever the mind of man can conceive and believe, the mind can achieve”. The problem with the people from middle class, lower middle class and poor people is that their dreams are too low. The constraints and limitations in their life probably don’t let them fly on the wings of dreams. But the fact is that even the poor people dream. The difference is that their dreams are limited to the next higher orbit of prosperity or capability. Their imagination can take them to that level only. An illiterate poor farmer’s son staying in a village probably dreams of just passing the matriculation examination and getting a small job in a government office. Or he may dream of very good rain in the next season and a bumper crop so that his father can get him a new bicycle. The son of a Havaldar from army just dreams of becoming a commissioned officer in the Army. There is nothing wrong in this. But the fact is that nobody stops them from dreaming much higher; much bigger.

There are stories of a very large number of people across the world who were of a very mediocre or even poor background and yet they achieved great heights. A bit of deep study will reveal that all these people had great dreams. Even if they had lower level of dreams, they kept on raising the bar every time they achieved what they wanted. There was insatiable intense hunger in their belly to achieve more and more. There is another category of people who become stagnant the moment they achieve their dream even half way. They call themselves highly satisfied people, but actually it is inertia that starts ruling their mind and they become stagnant. Their growth stops there only.

What we need is that we should have real high dreams, which many may feel as unimaginable for you. Don’t worry about other people even if they laugh at you. Convert these dreams into strong desire and decide a direction for yourself to start moving in the direction of your dream. And this direction has to be followed with full dedication, determination and discipline. Most of the time your dream may look too distant and therefore it may be a bit vague too. So breakup your dream into small deadlines, may be a large number of them. These deadlines could be called your milestones on the way to your ultimate dream. They are your short term goals. Visualize yourself achieving these goals and motivate yourself for action in that direction through auto suggestion.

These goals are short term and therefore look within reach and you can work hard to achieve them. Just remember that these goals should be SMART goals. The SMART here stands for Specific, Measureable, Achievable, Relevant and Time bound. Any goal that you set for yourself and it has these five characteristics, it is very highly likely that you shall achieve that. You keep achieving these small deadlines or goals one after the other and it will take you nearer and nearer to your ultimate cherished dream, your ultimate destination. Let us assume that even if you are not able to achieve the ultimate dream but you have achieved some milestones in that direction. You have obviously moved nearer to your destination. That itself is a great achievement of having a dream and then following it with a strong desire, with a direction and following it with dedication, determination and discipline to reach somewhere close to your destination.

In fact, you can have a set of dreams in different aspects of life. Some dreams can be related to your family, some related to financial prosperity and some may be related to your career. Once you have achieved a dream, you can always add the new ones.

You must always remember that a dream with action is Commitment and a dream with inaction is nothing but Hallucination. Build a Dream and the Dream will build you.