A Business Leader’s Soliloquy: When Management Jargon Becomes Communication Bandwagon!

People need language to communicate. Over time, management experts have developed a unique business language; one interesting, it has now become annoying.  It helps communicate something odd about them, rather than help them communicate evenly with their colleagues. This business language comprises several phrases and epithets which have achieved a cult status in managerial and leadership circles. Strangely, this language is not affected either by gender nor generation. It is pretty universal. Developed once upon a time (but not so long ago) for impact, much of the business language has become cliché-like, annoying jargon. Not to be deterred, self-appointed masters of business communication continue to revel in its use; and some are sworn to it. Here is one such soliloquy!

As I wake up each morning, peeping out of the window, I remind myself of my high-flying penchant for blue sky thinking. Sure, I will be aided by my consultants landing today with their own helicopter view of affairs here. While they may urge me to do some out of the box thinking, I will demonstrate to them how I can pick low hanging fruits by myself ahead of their developing a strategic staircase. As I take shower, I do get my idea showers too. I realize my team does not have the required bandwidth but I consider it my responsibility to cascade all my ideas and create core competencies in my team. Surely, I will run up the flagpole a couple of my ideas and see whether they would help me square the circle!

Thinking of teams, I would like to get all my ducks in a row but with the kind of team I have, I am as dead as a duck in facing the competition. I tell my Human Resources (HR) team members repeatedly to look under the bonnet but they hardly are able to move the needle on this. Going forward, I need to synergize with my HR head so that we can get to the table the best talent, but I am unable to get my message over the wall even with him. I am unhappy that instead of running with this concept my team keeps moving the goal posts. At this rate zero revenue will not be a ballpark figure for my next budget. I need to induct some really best of breed talent to achieve a paradigm shift in our thinking and performance.

Indeed, I touched base with my CEO about this troubling situation. Instead of facing the issue squarely, he dropped the ball when he said that we should take this offline. Much as I want to take to the next level my team’s performance, pushing the envelope, here is my CEO who is not even reactive, let alone be proactive. People think that he and I are joined at the hip, and that I have a lot of face-time with him; but this episode shows our convergent divergence! I am not going to be put off by this; I am going to hit the ground running, putting the pedal to the metal. I want to give my 110 % to my leadership role. I know that our company is debt laden; all the more reason why I should leverage my intellectual capital. That is a win-win paradigm for boundless synergy of intellectual finance, signifying deep-bonding of equity capital with bank debt. I know all our stakeholders will be thrilled with the ROI all this will entail!

I am one who would like to drill down, in fact, deep drill down, on issues, benchmark against competition and crystallise solutions. Some team members may play hardball but I have enough support to bulldoze them. I want that every one of my team members should sing from the same hymn sheet but I know that there some who don’t still get that I am results driven. I have decided to bite the bullet and take such people out of the loop. After all, what can be a greater party than all of my team members toeing the party line? The bottom line of my management is that when the push comes to shove I will not be hesitant to look at the one throat to choke. Actually, that is the million dollar question!

Each day, from my 30 thousand feet perspective, I look for the ideas that have got legs, with the hope that even if I can’t sprint to my goal posts, at least my ideas will! I know I do not have enough boots on ground but it is all about synergising and leveraging available guys so that we can do more with less. I am not a micro-manager but I have a hands-on style; I would like to put a record on, and see who dances. I view my people in buckets; performers and non-performers; mind you, I do believe in incentivizing performers. In all this performance appraisal process, however, I don’t wish to wait the whole year as it is not good to let the grass grow too long under me.

I want to engage with my people as they are my moving, and also removable, assets. Every day is a new beginning for me with them, and I treat every issue as a new horizon. I believe in root and branch review that helps me with hits and misses. I am not married to my team irrespective of performance; actually I believe in asynchronous engagement and conscious uncoupling, as far as employee relations are concerned. I am issue-focused, data-driven and results-oriented, with a stage-gated approach. You see, I am a visionary, and whenever my team members struggle to keep pace with me, I encourage them to do some white space thinking, and try to cross the chasm to reach me.

It is not that I don’t encounter failures; every time we fail (as is usual most of the times!), we go back and sharpen our pencils – so much so that on most occasions we have no pencils left! That said, I know how to manage the optics of failure. I believe in disruptive technologies, and creative destruction, with a fuzzy vision as a highway of growth. I know it is radical philosophy and there are not many who can step up to the plate with the leadership USP I have. I believe in kicking up a perfect storm, every now and then. That’s my formula for a balanced ecosystem, whatever it means. I don’t like people who keep saying that it is not our core competency or that we should stick to our knitting. You see, heart of heart, I believe I am a one-off leader. I take a ready-aim-fire approach to problems.

Long back I worked in a food corporation where I was told silos are very important (to store foodgrains, of course!). Now, in this organization, breaking silos is my thematic template and cultural anchor. I don’t mind sounding like a broken record here (about breaking silos, that is!). I keep telling my people – business is all about building value not building silos! Having failed in that I coined a new organizational mantra – bridging the silos! We do face some headwinds there but I am an eternal optimist; it is all a question of seeing the glass half full or half empty! Transparency is always the big elephant in our meeting rooms. At the end of the day, we as leaders need to walk the talk; if there is no talk how can we walk? I wear two hats, therefore, one that of an optimist, seeing a door where there is a wall, as I said earlier, and the other that of a pessimist – seeing a wall when there is a door!

I would like our meetings to be fun at work! I want to keep an open door system and I don’t want hard stops but I can’t help being time-titrated as I am busy like a bee. As we take up each problem, I want to peel back all the layers of the onion. I wish to go granular in analysing problems and be scalable in providing solutions. I want my team to be chained to the concept of value chain, on a holistic basis. I want my people to be intrapreneurs. I admit that my tenure has seen more problems than solutions but that’s how irony of life is! My job is managing the paradoxes. I rely on my 80-20 rule to action on the right issue. Of course, I have my 2 cents of opinion on every issue but I need to manage expectations that I can provide solutions to problems, with white board and zero base approaches. I want to keep everyone in loop and circle back even when I miss my meetings. At times, I feel that I have too many chefs in the meeting room. I honestly want to do a level-set of my team every now and then.

I am the boss but I am a team player. I don’t want my people thrown under the bus. Yet, I carry too much on my shoulders, but mind you, my team members seem to have a chip on the shoulders that they are the victims. I feel I am actually the victim here! Probably, I am used to drinking from the fire hose! I keep telling my people to put our game faces on but there are not many who are ready for the game. They don’t realize that business is all about basic blocking and tackling. I try to inspire people by talking about the next big thing. I like calibrating me against myself! Comparing me with anyone else is certainly not an apple to apple comparison (of course, I am the apple)! Someone said that it is impossible for my team to study me; he asked, after all, is it possible to boil an ocean?

I am a firm believer that we should be more focussed on go-to-market and first-to-market strategies each day, rather than be preoccupied with go-to-home and quick-to-home habits. I want to be customer-focused and technology driven.  For that I look for bleeding edge technologies; leading edge ones are passe’ to me. I believe firmly that Sunset industries require Sunrise technologies. Technology gets us a greater mind-share from our customers. And with some tailwinds in business, we can do great. I want my team to get its arms around the technology animal. I know that technology is just one aspect, and that there are lots of moving parts in business management, but technology is the burning platform for most companies, including mine. Sure, technology strategy requires crystal ball gazing but I punt heavily on my capabilities in this. By way of housekeeping, I keep a laundry list of all the potential growth triggers, though. I may sound immodest but I would like to be called technology evangelist.

I have decided to solution-architect my organization to meet the challenge. I have the ‘D’ and ‘R’ for this as the leader. First of all, I will deploy horses for courses, keeping technology and business separate. I will create a SWAT team to identify the technology direction, and a Tiger Team to actually source the technologies. I will establish a swim line of communication. I will go for high-impact technologies and reach out to every director to support. I want my firm to have its own silicon valley even as it grasps every external window of opportunity. But at the same time, I do not wish to reinvent the wheel.  If after all this, there is no buy-in from anyone, so be it; it is what it is! I want my organization move from good to great. If needed, I will right-size it but I will also get next-gen people and practices. I know it is not plug and play but I think I can have an energising effect, and electrifying impact for empowering people. This is my big challenge and this is where the rubber meets the road!

I keep telling my people that if they are able to wrap their heads around my challenge and colour outsides the lines, they should do not be keeping their ideas in the parking lot. I am eager to monetize their inputs with my delivery. I will never make my employees out-of-pocket with me, I assure them. Still, I am unclear why they do not appreciate that I am putting a stake in the ground here. If only they are aligned with me, my performance can indeed go viral! I just need a few quick wins. It is no brainer, really. I am not clear why my people do not appreciate my game-plan. I thought my communication is always so crystal-clear!!!

Posted by Dr CB Rao on May 13, 2016

The Silence of Lions: Wisdom that Speaks

Leaders are lionized, the world over. They are cheered for every pronouncement and praised for every accomplishment. They are adored but also respected. They are feared but are also seen as protectors. Just as a lion strides as the undisputed leader of animal kingdom, leaders act as the lions that stride in corporate kingdoms. The physical presence of leaders evokes awe and respect even as digital technologies have vastly expanded their magical presence across borders and time zones. Leaders have one thing in common; they constantly articulate. They motivate, inspire and galvanize their organizations. The crowds they see constantly imbues them with even greater power to articulate. Whether it is the presidential primaries and election debates in the US or the great rallies of multiple leaders in the world’s greatest democracy called India, one can see how leaders are at their energetic best to sway the crowds.   

There are times when speeches become battle cries and when exhortations become frenzied roars. Roar is typically defined as a deep throated cry of a wild animal. It also refers to the racy zoom of an accelerating engine or a speeding vehicle. Roar has connotations of raw power. Many reasons are adduced as to why leaders ‘roar’. Firstly, they roar to unify their followers to one single mission; it could be electing a party in a democracy or toeing a ‘party line’ in a corporate setting. Secondly, they roar to emerge larger than life; the more they galvanize and electrify their followings the more they become iconic (not in all cases though!). Thirdly, leaders need to be heard in the face of occasional descent; the power of eloquent speech overcomes the suggestions of hesitant dissent, if any. Leadership roar becomes, over time, a theatrical accompaniment of leadership evolution, inspirational, evangelistic, opportunistic and narcissistic in its mix, the relative proportion varying from leader to leader.

Lore of roar

Leaders who dramatize their speeches become sort of leadership and communications folklore. Steve Ballmer, previous CEO of Microsoft was known for his theatrics on the stage as he made fiery and passionate speeches. It is a different matter that a mild mannered Satya Nadella has been able to change and make Microsoft more relevant, compared to the Ballmer times. While not all leaders are made the Ballmer way, many do make extensive use of body movements and raising of voice to lend strength and sharpness to their speeches. For some leaders, dignity and resonance of their voice comes naturally. In India, N T Rama Rao (NTR) who a legendary actor in Telugu cinema and rode to power in just 9 months after setting up a new political party in Andhra Pradesh was very much a lion that roared his way with the unmatched strength of his voice, body language and speech delivery. This is not to say that only roaring speeches make the sway. In NTR’s case, it is his movie base, including the unmatched stature in mythological roles, his novel poll promises aimed at the poor and indigent, and his corruption-free image combined to usher him in. It is beyond doubt, however, that the roar in his speeches projected effectively what all he represented and signified.

In the physical social world fiery, passionate and roaring speeches would continue to be the main connector and influencer. Magic of speeches is not permanent, however. While passionate speeches inspire the followers and sway non-followers, it is the action on ground that develops credibility. Every speech, doubtless, is made with a message and exhortation. More than the roar, the speech must appeal to the inner self in terms of logic, clarity and conviction, and its long term relevance. While in the corporate world presentations supplement or even substitute speeches, in the political and administrative world it is the personal, physical speechmaking that counts. The ability to speak is, therefore, the very essence of sustainable leadership. While the written word has the magic to move too, it is the speech that connects more intensely. The success of Robin Sharma, founder of Titan Academy, and a globally established leadership coach and author of creative books on leadership development, is related to his continuous speech making which is streamed on his website, and re-streamed on platforms like You Tube. 

    

Passion of persuasion

Roaring speeches are invariably passionate and make listeners also passionate. The effectiveness with which the listeners share the passion depends on the extent to which their minds and hearts stay connected with the speech maker. The speeches that that Gurus make whether Sri Sri Ravi Shankar, Jaggi Vasudev or Baba Ramdev do not roar or race like a mighty waterfall but cruise like a tranquil river. Roaring speeches tend to make people to act, whether to vote or to execute. Tranquil speeches tend to make people think, reflect and change. Roaring speeches seek to transform people collectively without as much of individualized thinking that should ideally take place while tranquil speeches seek to change individual thinking in a collective setting as it must ideally happen. Roaring speeches impose and embed a line of thinking in the listeners with a boost of adrenalin while tranquil speeches develop and integrate a line of thinking in them with an interplay of persuasion and reflection.

Delivering a roaring speech or a tranquil speech is not one of a dynamic choice for a leader; it tends to be the very native or intrinsic characteristic of a leader. Whichever is the characteristic, leaders would do well to remember that persuasion needs to be at the core of the change or reinforcement, as the case may be. Leaders must not only be excited to make passionate speeches but be committed to be persuasive with their followers. When leaders are collectively present on a dais or in a forum, only those who can be passionate must be passionate and those who are tranquil or sedentary should keep to their style. Competitive speech-making by a collective group of leaders is a disaster in communications. On the other hand, sticking to their core characteristics and competencies by individual leaders in their respective speech-making provides greater collective impact. It is not about lionizing or prioritizing the leader; it is more about reflecting genuineness as a team.

Silent wisdom

With efflux of time, there must come an inflexion point when a lion can no longer roar. In today’s materialistic world, a silent lion is seen as a spent force. Given that the roar signals its own internal pride, inability to roar makes aged lions recluse. The case of roaring leaders is no different. When energy and strength desert, the hitherto dominatingly articulate leader becomes vulnerable, and eventually recluse, by his or her intent or others’. This is not a personal loss to the leader but a greater loss to the organizations and societies. One would, for example, wish stalwarts like Atalji continued to energize the political arena and Ratan Tata would be as articulate as ever in the corporate arena. Ideally, even when lions become silent their wisdom can, and must, speak for the larger good.

Forceful speakers would never have to regret that the ‘force’ would ever desert them so long as they build wisdom through the years. Force gets expressed through minor interactions, written communications, and even through silent presence. Indian mythology is replete with examples of wise sages who conveyed more through silent ‘dhyana’ (akin to meditation) than through vocal sermons. Those speakers who have spent their lifetime in delivering valuable content as opposed to mere speeches would automatically become the dhyana gurus whose wisdom speaks for itself despite their silence. Some of the greatest epics and songs of Indian culture have been conveyed through word of mouth propagation by the disciples who were moved by the content. In contemporary society as well, meaningful content would speak for itself, even long after the roaring voices fall silent.

When silence speaks

Effective speeches, in the final analysis, are not made of either roaring ferocity or energetic passion. Aggression and energy certainly carry the day for the speaker, and may even secure the desired outcomes from the teams but cannot leave lasting legacies without thematic content. It is not for no reason that the nuggets of wisdom in the speeches of Swami Vivekananda, Mahatma Gandhi, Jawaharlal Nehru, Abraham Lincoln, Martin Luther King and John F Kennedy have been preserved in, and for, the posterity. Voices of great leaders may have gone silent but their words have not. Such is the eternal power of content that has messages that last across generations. Nations, societies and organizations are moved less by mountains of words but are inspired more by succinct messages of lasting value. Nations, societies and organizations are also moved less by a leader who sounds and acts lofty and inimitable but are inspired more by one who feels like one of them.

The essence of a good speech lies in it being purposive, purposeful, creative, meaningful, logical, authentic, relevant, and, most importantly, executable. The role of the leader who develops and delivers the speech does not end with meeting the immediate objectives but begins with leaving lasting impressions. While energy, enthusiasm and passion make for a lively speech, it is important that the central message itself springs to life to the audience. It is not so much about how the speech has been delivered but what has been delivered as the central theme that impacts the listeners’ lives. This objective is best accomplished when the speech exemplifies genuine ownership of the problems as well as solutions and displays as much concern for changing the fortunes of the organisation as to improving the lives of the listeners. Wisdom dos not emerge magically when the roar fades; it gets accumulated and compounded over the years, and decades, to speak for itself when time comes!

Posted by Dr CB Rao on April 14, 2016

Advocacy, Influencing and Directing (AID): A Leadership Aid to Aligned Progress

The human race, by and large, is genetically programmed to keep the interests of self ahead of satisfying the interests of the society. Fortunately, civilization has devised, over the centuries, a number of structures and processes to achieve alignment between social and individual interests. Organization is one of the most important structures that are designed to achieve alignment. Goal setting and goal realization is one of the most important processes that are designed to achieve progress. Progress would be optimal when it is achieved by organizations with alignment of all the members of the organization. Several leadership and managerial processes have been designed and practiced to achieve aligned progress. Yet, a successful model to achieve aligned progress could be surprisingly simple in its components though complex in practice.

Advocacy, influencing and directing are proposed in this blog post as the three core components of the aligned progress model. Interestingly, all the three are facets and forms of communication, each of which requires not only a different skill but even more importantly results from a personality type. The Advocacy-Influencing-Directing (AID) leadership communication model is a three step sequential yet iterative process that enables leaders to accomplish aligned progress of their organizations. Advocacy is the ability to argue a public cause or an individual view that could qualify as a public cause. Influencing is the ability to steer a person or group of persons to a particular view.  Directing is the ability to make people execute as per the agreed thought. Clearly, advocacy is a prerequisite for influencing which is, in turn, a prerequisite for directing. When all the three take effect in a seamless manner, aligned progress tends to be an automatic result. Interestingly, each of the three components has different shades.

Advocacy

Advocacy is the espousal of a public cause for a definitive positive judgment. The courts of law and the judicial system are the primary areas of advocacy. In the context of social or business organizations, however, advocacy works two ways. It requires private acceptance of public causes as well as public acceptance of private causes. A couple of examples illustrate. Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) as mandated by the new Companies Act 2013 in India, or CSR even otherwise commonly understood, is a positive public cause. However, how the agencies of government interpret CSR and how the business organizations perceive their own responsibility towards CSR require advocacy. This is a classic case of a well accepted public cause requiring private or individual advocacy to gain traction. The ongoing advocacy efforts on establishing the new capital for Andhra Pradesh is another example of advocacy of a public cause from multiple angles. The takeaway is that however well conceived or well merited a public cause is, it triggers and requires advocacy with multiple stakeholders in relevant forms.

The example of a private or individual viewpoint gaining a more public or total public advocacy can be had from business. An entrepreneur who has an innovative technical idea or a viable business idea needs to mount an advocacy campaign at multiple levels; with professionals to build his or her management team, with investors and lenders to attract the resources, with governments to secure the necessary approvals, with vendors and channel partners to become a part of value chain, with customers to establish a value proposition, and even more fundamentally with his or her own family members to become an entrepreneur. The strength of advocacy of an individual viewpoint into wider public consensus is the core of entrepreneurship. Even in established organizations, the ‘command and control’ approach has to be replaced by an ‘advocate and influence’ approach if the plural intellectual views have to be harnessed for the best possible outcomes. With advocacy comes the next step of influencing.  

Influencing

Language being what it is, the word ‘influencing’ evokes both positive and negative connotations, often caused by the interpretative mindsets of the viewer or bystander, and not necessarily of the participants. For the purpose of the AID model, we may assume all influencing to be positive only. Influencing is the way of getting an important constituent to accept the proposed viewpoint. Influencing cannot occur without advocacy. Powerful and cogent adequacy makes the job of influencing easy but not necessarily automatic. To return to our examples, a public cause such as CSR becomes an individual leadership or business cause when the outcomes impact the individual leader or the business in some manner; like, CSR in community education improving the quality of people a firm can hire from the local community. The committee constituted to recommend options on AP capital, Sivaramakrishnan Committee, may advocate decentralized capital(s) model but the AP Government itself may not be influenced by the recommendation. If the Committee also had the powers to allocate financial support to different capital models possibly such advocacy would have led to influence.  

In organizations and businesses too, influence has a capping up role to advocacy. Advocacy, especially for a cause or a change, often challenges established mores and positions. The entrepreneur who advocates his technology solution or business model challenges the status quo and is typically met with skeptical response initially (“if you are novel, what is the guarantee of success”, and “if you are a follower, what is the guarantee of superiority”, for example). When the entrepreneur offers stock options to his or her startup team members sharing his wealth, he or she would be following up the advocacy with positive influencing. In the case of established organizations, the stakes of individuals in established structures and processes tend to be so enormous that they tend to be resistant, if not impervious, to change. A logical extension of ‘advocate and influence’ approach, for example, would be to create organizational or business think-tanks which can serve as forums to pool in diverse thought processes and develop advocacy and influencing choices. These channel the intellectual power of large organizations towards convergence.

Directing

At the end of advocacy and influencing processes, the need for directing inevitably comes. Directing, as a process, involves establishing goals and moving the organization towards accomplishment of the goals. In the standard managerial template, the leader is expected to direct. However, that is not the only option in the emerging managerial context. Self-directed management of organizations is entirely possible, especially if the processes of advocacy and influencing have been gone through. In fact, these processes bring in ownership and accountability that makes self-directed management at least as successful as leader-directed management. Organizations can excel in CSR activities through such self-direction. As we may note, self-help groups have been an important success component of the microfinance movement in India. Building of a new capital could be a self-directed effort if the interests of land owners and the capital builders are aligned through a special purpose vehicle (SPV) for ownership.

In organized businesses, managements and leaderships find it difficult to strike the right balance between decentralization and centralization (self-direction and command-direction, correspondingly). Skeptics may wonder the need for advocacy and influencing (or such other participative concepts) if the final need is to direct. This skepticism arises from the inability to appreciate the power of an aligned individual. Truly entrepreneurial organizations are self-directed organizations that clock rapid growth on a number of fronts. Large organizations and businesses should establish several incubators for business ideas and technology solutions, and follow through the successful ones with business units. Yet, many firms would be reluctant to adopt a diversified federal structure until the whole monolith becomes completely unwieldy and unviable. The AID model of leadership communication would result in aligned progress of societies, organizations and businesses.

Aligned progress

Certain minimal factors support progress of organizations and businesses as well as of societies and economies. The issue is whether the full potential of an organization or a business is reached in such routine ‘lowest common multiple’ manners. Despite the anecdotal evidence of weak strands of thread when intertwined forming a strong rope, the powerful impact aligned progress can have on enterprise activity and outcomes is not fully appreciated. Aligned progress typically gets viewed in a gross manner than in a subtle way; for example, a common slogan that is accepted by all or a common brand that is related to by all is considered good enough reflection of alignment. In a conglomerate setting all constituent companies buying each other’s products may also seem to be aligned development. True aligned progress, however, gets accomplished based on advocacy of the best causes or ideas, influential stakeholder participation and self-directed management of affairs.

The concept is not necessarily an inversion of the classic pyramid of power; nor is it an abandonment of the concept of organizational pyramid either. On the other hand, it is a unique pyramid which has three sides of advocacy, influence and direction converging into pivotal power. Just as there can be no pyramid without three sides aligned progress cannot come about without these three planks. It is a sequential and iterative interaction between the three aspects; the leader at the helm needs to be an advocate, influencer and director – all rolled into one. The issues to advocate, the outcomes to influence and the efforts to direct would constitute a holistic communication competence for the AID leadership communication model. In their heydays several topnotch business leaders of India could achieve unique combinations of advocacy, influence and direction for their enterprises with aligned progress for them. Dr Homi Bhabha for BARC, Dr Abdul Kalam for DRDO, V Krishnamurthy for Maruti Suzuki, N R Narayana Murthy for Infosys, Azim Premji for Wipro, A M Naik for L&T, Dhirubhai Ambani for Reliance and Ratan Tata for Tata Group are just a few examples.

Posted by Dr CB Rao on August 29, 2014

        

 

Structured Spontaneity and Prepared Oratory: Cues for Immersive Communication Experiences

India has just seen a massive election with a transformative vote. Multiple parties attempted discourses and debates through their organizations and leaders but only a few eventually succeeded.  Social history teaches that logical discourse that appeals to broad masses determined the enlightenment of societies and organizations. Similarly, business history teaches us that organizations which are collaborative and communicative internally and externally achieve sustainable success. Societies and organizations require collaboration to succeed. Collaboration, in turn, needs communication to succeed. Communication is based on points of view which are exchanged in conversations or in writing. The success of communication, hence that of collaboration and the success of societies and organizations is dependent on the logic of views and their expression. Logic that is positive and sublime, like that of peace and prosperity, leads to enlightened development.

The adventurous ability to lead a sunrise industry or the competitive ability to dominate a fragmented market is based on the organizational ability to communicate within itself and with the outside world. From a corporate logo that conveys a common identity and purpose to business vision and strategy that convey a common theme, a viewpoint is consistently expressed by businesses. These tend to be institutional initiatives, well researched, well debated and well articulated. What adds to the strength and sparkle is the productivity of communication across the organization and within its broader ecosystem. Everyone has a point of view but not every point of view would be logical. Every view deserves to be expressed and listened to but rarely these processes are well accomplished; more people tend to be keen to express than listen. Business organizations can take several cues from political organizations on how organizational units can be structured, and discourses and debates accomplished to achieve aligned objectives.

Societies and organizations

Societies have several forums to communicate. In an electoral process, they vary from door-to-door word-of-mouth communication to massive road shows involving millions. Communication occurs through print as well as electronic media. Cumulative impact of governance or opposition lies embedded in social psyche. Yet, in a short span of one month, political parties are able to cover nearly a billion people to influence transformative voting pattern. Success in such marathon and daunting processes occurs through careful internal collaboration and calibrated external communication. A simple theme becomes as important as a complex manifesto and the style of communication becomes as important as substance of communication. When political leaders singularly achieve such mammoth tasks across nations there is no reason why managers and leaders should ignore the powerful impact of collaboration and communication across organizations.

The success of national political campaigns, irrespective of geography, is dependent on two sets of factors; the first set is issues and solutions while the second set is forums and cascades. Likewise, the success of business communication, irrespective of the firm, would also depend on issues and solutions on one hand and forums and cascades on the other. Unlike social forums, corporate issues, solutions, forums and cascades are more structured and continuous which has its own advantages and disadvantages. That said, it is somewhat strange that while millions of a nation could be swayed by national leaders to vote one way or the other, the few participants of a business forum tend to be diffident to efforts by managers and leaders to align and achieve. Clearly what works for social campaigns does not appear to work in terms of business campaigns. That is essentially because societies are willing to listen and follow certain themes of development while organizations tend to continuously second-guess  leadership and managerial themes.

Forums and cascades

The importance of forums and cascades is evidenced by the successes of political parties which have a strong hierarchy of organizational units and committed cadres. Here lies the important difference between how electoral processes are organized for political organizations and how leadership processes are organized for business units. The former, the savvy political organization, has committed leadership at the top and committed cadre base at the bottom, both thematically aligned, and in respect of some parties very well indoctrinated too. These two layers form a tight cone with a circle of connected cadres at the bottom and a leadership polestar at the apex, encapsulating an undecided population in cascading layers of thematic discourse, from the top as well as the bottom. The more diametrically larger the base of the thematic cone, the stronger is the grip on the voters. The top-down and bottom-up cascade make for perfect discourse. Whenever cadres lose their thematic fervor, the electoral cone becomes wobbly.

Business organizations over time have begun to eschew the classical pyramid structure and have started adopting  more square-like, or even multi-cornered, structures, which is quite different from evolution of political organizations from triangular structures to seamless, circle within circle, conical structures. Organizational design must be reassessed if thematic alignment is desired as an overriding goal. The loss in communication in totally top-down communication of business organizations is not well understood. A few all-hands auditorium meetings by themselves cannot address the challenge. Grassroots cadre indoctrination is vital. Japanese organizations accomplish this by putting their youngest employees through comprehensive company study programs and on the job training assignments, regardless of their individual functional specializations. As a result, what emerges is neither a functional personality nor an individual personality but an enterprise personality. When cadre becomes hand in hand seamlessly, the cone of alignment and achievement gets built up.

Points of view, logics of view

The other important difference between political organizations and business organizations is that in the former the leaders are elected while in the latter the leaders are selected. In the former, leaders have little opportunity to collaborate directly with the stakeholders  once the election process is over while in the latter leaders have the opportunity of direct interface with the stakeholders at all times. Business organizations thus provide a unique opportunity for discourse and debate all times. Organizations have the choice of accepting this intrinsic feature and leveraging it to unleash creative energy or fight shy of widespread discourse and debate in them. Though the benefits are recognized by them, organizations fumble at enabling discourse and debate, and eventually try to sidestep the whole process by reducing the process to directed meetings rather than freewheeling debates.

Organizations need to be empowering to enable individual points of view while individuals need to be responsible to support viewpoints with logics of view. Discourses and debates become unproductive when they are characterized by discreet silence or indiscrete rancor. Individuals who believe that silence is better to reflect their compliance would do well to remember that as team members they are morally and professionally contracted to give their best to their organizations, expression of their constructive thoughts is integral to the best. Individuals who tend to be rancorous to draw attention to themselves would do well to remember that as  team members they are morally and professionally contracted to be constructive and disciplined in their interactions. The point to note is that as long as individual viewpoints are supported by logic of views, other team members would be compelled to listen and respond.

Expressive listening

The hallmark of meaningful communication and collaboration lies in positive expression and positive listening of individual, mutual and collective viewpoints. Viewpoints need to be expressed for any discourse or debate and teamwork to be effective; the power of expression is proportional to the logic, coherence, cogency and equanimity of expression. Even the most critical thoughts can be positively expressed when expression is characterized by theses components. Positive expression is an intelligent and intellectual balance between spontaneity (which gives authenticity) and preparation (which removes negativity). The brain and mind must be developed to capture thoughts, internally articulate and validate and then only express. The skillful speaker has not only a spring full of thoughts but also the agility of mind to process them. Interestingly, the ability to powerfully and positively express comes from an ability to listen with sensitivity and responsiveness. Powerful political leaders such as Nehru, Gandhi, Obama, NTR and Modi have been orators who made listeners respond but also have been responsive to listeners through a balance of spontaneity and preparation.

Business leaders and managers must view communication as less of a task and more of an experience. Active listening happens not merely through ears but through eyes as well; whether it is a bilateral communication or multilateral communication. Active listening, as opposed to passive listening, requires that the listeners go beyond the words and look for the broader and deeper meanings of the communication; they must also see the meanings through observation of body language. The processing capability of the mind and brain mentioned above is essential for active listening. Active listeners tend to be effective speakers. Expressive listening, therefore, requires that both the speakers and listeners perform the other corresponding task simultaneously. Speakers need to be aware of the body language of the listeners to take listening cues while listeners need to process the communication and express their responses to themselves first internally. Expressive listening is a skill that comes not only with experience of participating in interactions but also with the understanding that expression and listening are two essential wheels of the cycle of communication.

Ambient meetings

Ambience marks all overwhelming experiences; from massive political road shows to selective business conferences; political orators (for example, Nehru) are effective and so are business orators (for example, Steve Jobs)   As important as oration is ambience. Successful political road shows have a rustic and earthy, open sky and sea of humanity ambience. NT Rama Rao (NTR), the legendary actor turned political leader and the founder of Telugu Desam party took mass contact to new levels through his chariot of awakening (Chaitanya Ratham). Steve Jobs took product launch events to ethereal trajectories through a powerful combination of technological works and theatrical oratory. It is important for speakers and listeners to give due attention to meeting formats, realizing that it is entirely in them to make business meetings interactive and informative.

There could be several themes for ambience; leader-led or listener-led, technology-led or human-led, concept-led or data-led, power point-led or persona-led, and so on. Business organizations have thus several formats to leverage for effective communication and collaboration. This contrasts with the rather singular option of mass contact that political organizations have. Successful political organizations succeed against the odds mainly through ambient meetings. It is important that business organizations approach meetings as more than simple task movers. The range of additional impact could be from meeting of minds to moving experiences; the former promotes collaborative harmony while the latter ensures transformative development, of both individuals and organizations. It may sound challenging but there is no other winning formula than a combination of structured spontaneity and prepared oratory to make meetings a compellingly immersive experience.

Posted by Dr CB Rao on May 25, 2014  

Sensor Measurement And Response Technology Devices (SMART Devices): The New Art and Science of Living

The cellular phone, first popularized around two decades ago has undergone a metamorphosis ‎that was unbelievable, even a decade ago. It is now more than just a phone that enables mobile connectivity and talking. It has become a camera, an organizer, a social media platform, an application provider and so much more. As a result, such a generation of cellular phones began to be called smart phones as contrasted with basic or feature phones. Each month, a new smart phone is announced which scales new dimensions in these features, as well as in terms of the visible display technologies and the embedded processing technologies. It is predicted that the smart phone would evolve into a personal assistant of sorts, and an integral part of one's personality. 

This blog post proposes a different take on the smart phones. The smart phone is no longer a phone plus a few other things. Neither is it a micro-computer‎  with speech supporting capabilities. The technologies deployed in the current smart phone designs have the potential to lead to generic and customized smart devices that can make human lives become smarter. The key to this transformational development would be the embedded smart technologies that have a very specific objective. The  future generation would be powered and managed by Sensor Measurement and Response Technologies, with a well deserved acronym of SMART. All devices of the future would be Smart Devices.

 

Measure and Respond 

The ‎key to human life is measurement and response. The body, for example, has a way of measuring the hunger level and triggering the hunger satisfying behavior. Once food is accessed and ingested, it has also a way of measuring the satisfaction level and controlling the eating cycle. There are innumerable, in fact infinite, ways of measurement and response that happen in any living being, let alone the more evolved human being. The biological features and capabilities of the body, genetically given and experientially developed, control the sharpness of the measurement and response mechanism in individuals. This innate capability differentiates people, more particularly in trades such as driving, piloting, constructing, designing, fabricating and so on. 

The measure and respond cycle essentially gets performed through the five basic sensory faculties of an individual, these being hearing, seeing, touching, tasting and smelling. All developments of nature and inventions of technology are pivoted on the five sensory aspects of human life. All aspects of market development and customer satisfaction are also pivoted on these five basic faculties. Even the qualitative emotional aspects are governed by the measurement and response cycle of human awareness. The hypothesis, therefore, is that the ability of an individual to have a fulfilling life can be substantially increased if a new generation of Smart Devices that can serve as the ultimate companions of human beings are developed.  

Existing and Emerging Examples 

The advent of electronics has revolutionized the measure and respond capabilities as well as the interface between the man and the machine on one hand and the man and the environment on the other.‎ Take the example of automobile: the man-machine measurement and response interface remained confined to accelerator and brake or the overall driving controls. With the advent of electronics, the measure and respond mechanism has extended to a whole series of activities ranging from the micro-mixing of fuel in the engine to the electronic management of driving. Similarly many other industrial activities have benefited from the finer measure and respond technologies, from automated assembly and inspection to computational design and  analytical instrumentation. 

The development of robots is another fine example of electronics creating a mechanical mimic of human measurement and response system. ‎Yet, it is only an example of a mimic, albeit faster, safer and sharper, of human movements. Robotics substitutes human endeavor and adds value to an industrial system rather than add value to the human being. Smart Devices, as envisaged in this blog post, would, on the other hand, would make the human being a better human being by virtue of aiding the measure and respond capabilities of the human being. A few examples of how Smart Devices can help enhance human life are considered below. 

Smart Vision 

Vision is one of the most important aspects of measure and respond cycle. Vision is prone to deterioration with age. Medical science has responded to this by providing glasses that compensate for the vision loss and by correcting, through lasix and other surgeries, the mechanisms of eye. A Smart Vision device can make a whole difference to this paradigm by continuously measuring the power required for an individual with reference to the objects that are to be seen or read, thus obviating the need for fixed corrections. A dynamic management of vision where by the  sensors set the tone for visual acuity can help the aged and disabled see and be aware of challenges and pathways in human mobility.

The ultimate Smart Vision Device would be an Artificial Eye. It would be path-breaking if the smart device can videograph on a continuous basis, size up the things it sees against the archived benchmarks and converts the interpretations into verbal advices through a speech assistant that is embedded in the device. The device should provide for adding new benchmarks by the caretakers. Such a device can be a boon for the blind and visually challenged people. From a lifestyle perspective, advancements in sensor technologies could help people see even beyond what the naked eye can see while from a healthcare perspective they could help targeted and precision surgery even more feasible than it is today. It remains to be seen whether the wearable computers like Google Glass would morph into artificial eyes of sorts. 

Smart Communication

A human being is in perpetual need of communication. The process of communication has been predominantly felt and experienced in terms of talking and hearing. The cell phone has been the medium of such modern communication. Even the so called smart phone has, however, probably seen only the beginning of a communication revolution. While it has, no doubt, brought about the era of anytime and anyplace communication between individuals what probably remains to be achieved is a more holistic communication between the man and the environment.‎ The incorporation of the measure and respond cycle in the smart phone capabilities would lead to the new generation of such smart holistic communication devices.  

Today's devices incorporate sensor recognition of gestures and choice of information through exercise of specific applications. Tomorrow's smart communication devices would help in communication with broader environment as a matter of continuous experience rather than as sporadic choice. The individual would set his or her expectations of the environment and his desired response, letting ‎the smart device guide him live through the times. An example would be a device system that would have a base station at home, an operating station in office and a mobile station on person. These three device units would be in constant communication with each other to a set calendar of events and activities for the individual. 

Smart Health

Smart devices, backed by the next generation of medical sensor and response, would be the next game changer for human life. Integrated with advancements in genetics and diagnostics, smart health devices would be a new generation of touch and diagnosis health care apparatus that could guide us to good health and responsible living; in fact, there are already some which measure calorie burn, heart rate and so on. Extending further, the recently introduced smart watches would evolve into pulse reading and blood pressure measuring instruments. Nanotechnology would help conduct several diagnostic tests that now require samples of blood in a simpler through cutaneous access. Together, there would offer potential to guide individuals, especially diabetic and hypertensive patients, to achieve more cautious and controlled living. 

Smart devices, like the pacemakers which set right an irregular heart rhythm, can help provide stability to the aged. The ability to judge time and motion gets impaired with age. Smart sensors can, much like the driver-less cars under test, can put the aged in an error-proof autopilot mode. Depending on which faculty is relatively less or more impaired for an individual, smart devices can cover up for the more impaired one and translate the corrective action to reinforce the better one. Smart devices can alert the others in the system if the individuals are so impaired that they cannot benefit by themselves with the suggestions from the devices. In several ways, the smart health devices can act as a daily support to safe conduct of people. 

Smart Others 

There could be several other applications for smart devices. With enhancements in analytical technology, they can guide the restaurants and guests alike on the nutrition content of the food items. ‎They can understand the moods of the individual owners and provide talk and music therapy sessions that can positively influence the psychological well-being of the individuals. They can interpret information from chosen applications and play real time alerts. For example, when natural calamities strike, rather than individuals seek alerts, the devices can beam out alerts, and advise on pathways, once the starting point and destination of a traveler are known. 

In the field of education, smart devices can be encyclopedias on the go. They can also be creators of crosswords, puzzles and teasers that are customized and calibrated for the intelligence quotient  ‎of an individual based on testing, a priori, of an individual. With appropriate tests, they can also serve as providers of psychological tests of individuals as they grapple with new situations. As each smart device will be typically owned by an individual, the consistency or variability of the individually can be evaluated longitudinally by the device and feedback provided to the individual. 

Smart Chips 

The real challenge in the Smart Device development as outlined above is the need to obviate the interface with the computer. While some of the functionalities mentioned above are getting established in devices, they would need to be networked to the computer for meaningful archival and trending. What would be transformational is a direct interface between the Smart Device and the individual. This would require development of Smart Chips for this kind of Smart Devices with several cores of very high storage and processing power each. Potentially, there would be the need for a Smart Bionic Chip that would communicate with the human brain, in interlock with the Smart Device. A decade into the future, all of these could be realities. 

The thesis of the blog post has been that in contrast to robotics which mimics human movements and efforts with much better capabilities in some cases, the new Smart Device saga must emphasize value adding and reinforcing normal human endeavors, with a special focus on safety, efficiency and health. That way, life would be more purposeful and fulfilling. The key would be development of bionic chips that could work in harmony with human life. These would be a natural extension of human life, programmed to spontaneous and continuous reinforcement and improvement. The chips that measure and respond on behalf of the individual would multiply his or her safe, healthy and productive behaviors manifold, helping him or her age gracefully with surety.  

Posted by Dr CB Rao on November 2, 2013