Corporate Life - Presentations

I count myself fortunate that the number of presentations that I am asked to attend, have reduced substantially over the years. Either the organisation has come to its senses about the efficacy of this mode of communication, or my colleagues and I seem to share the same dread for this process. Of course it goes without saying that, on the flip side, the number of presentations that I give, has also correspondingly fallen.

What has taken its place is the "Telecon", which will be the subject of another blog.

In presentations, there are some simple unspoken protocols, that I have observed over the years:

1. Presenters are required to keep the audience guessing as to the number of slides that they intend to go through.
2. Presenters are often required to read line by line from the slides, as if the audience cannot read the slides for themselves.
3. The most important person is always the last to enter the meeting room.
4. All presentations have to last the allocated time, irrespective of actual requirements.
5. The level of knowledge of the presenters, is in inverse proportion to the complexity of the slides on display.
6. The more cluttered the slide, the less meat in the subject.
7. The time it takes to finish a presentation is in inverse proportion to the importance of the topic being discussed.
8. The level and involvement of the attendees is in inverse proportion to the relevance and importance of the topic.
9. Topics or issues that need to be properly discussed or require a decision have to be taken off-line.
10. The person most required to take a decision, is always the one who is interrupted by an urgent call, or needs to leave for another meeting, at the most importune time.

Most of the above (though not all) tend to apply for all presentations, irrespective of the topic or the presenter. People have nodded away, walked out, taken calls or disrupted presentations. On one occasion I had my line manager fall asleep in the front row while we had our Bankers giving a Trade Finance seminar in our offices. At least there were 50 other staff as audience for the presenters to focus on.

What was worse was when we had the President of the Zone, coming on her first visit to the country. The Board Room had been booked for the entire day, with every member of the local Management Team scheduled to talk (pontificate) about how great a job each was doing. The President had arrived after a gruelling 3 days swing around the Region and was obviously jet-lagged. Midway through the second session (Distribution I recall) there was a loud snore, and we could see that our President had tuned out. You could have heard a pin drop, and in retrospect, it is hilarious to imagine very senior managers (including the CEO of the Company) left completely dumb-struck as to how to tackle this most unexpected of problems.

The very same President on her second trip to the region, a couple of months later, was meant to address all staff over lunch. A hotel ballroom had been hired, and a stage set-up, with a few chairs, one being for her. As the CEO was introducing her, she dropped off again, ON STAGE !!! By this time, the local Management, had gotten used to her dropsy, and covered up the situation by announcing lunch, with Q&A being postponed after lunch.

Talking about disruptions, the icing on the cake was when there was a mandatory 2 day Regional Workshop (presentation in other words) on Governance (quite a dry subject at the best of times). Senior people had flown in from all over the Region. The presenters had flown in from the HO in Europe, and the Chairman (who is ultimately responsible for governance and hence a required attendee), walks in two hours late without a by-your-leave, interrupts the speaker, states how important, in his view, the workshop is, and then finishes by stating that he would not be able to stay on, due to the fact that he had a more important meeting to attend.

In one minute flat, he had contradicted himself on the importance of the workshop, and made all the other attendees feel less important. In one stroke he conveyed to the other 25 senior managers that this workshop was not important at all. You can only imagine the state of that workshop over the next two days. One presenter, towards the end of the second day, confided that he, in his 25 years of service, had neither attended nor facilitated a worse session. Talk about leadership !!

Education

Last night we had friends over for dinner and there ensued a raging debate on the virtues of a primary education, and in particular, the school's role in it. There were two opposing views ranging, from the school being completely irrelevant, to it being absolutely vital for the child's development. My own view tipped towards the former.

What annoyed and surprised me, was my inability to logically articulate my position. I landed up sounding entrenched, obstinate and defensive. My arguments were based on the premise that if I looked around me, I saw innumerable successful people (in the broadest sense) who came from rather ordinary schools. It is the quality of higher education that sets apart the individual.

It was pointed out to me that there were an equal number of successful people who came from good schools, and if one were to look at the ratio of successful to unsuccessful students from good schools, it would be much higher than from the lower tiers. I cannot argue with that, since I have no way to benchmark.

My view is based on the inordinate amount of importance, parents of my generation give to their children's studies in the lower grades. It is completely out of proportion to the gravity of the situation. It defeats me as to why mothers would fret and fume over performance in the 2nd grade ? Why every quirk of character or performance needs to be discussed in detail with the teachers, as if not addressing the same, would result in a permanent flaw in the development of the child.

I cannot count the number of times, I have had to endure a prolonged wait for my daughters nursery results, while mothers went through the details of their childs entire term, day by day. Grades for every subject were discussed in detail, with every comment by the teacher analysed and dissected. All of this while I fretted (while waiting) as to why parents were required to personally pick up the term results, when they could so easily have been sent with the child.

In my day if parents were required to come to the school to pick up results, the child was in deep waters !!

The argument given to me is that the world is changing rapidly, competition is increasing and we as parents have to do whatever it takes to give our children an advantage. One of these methods is deep involvement in the minutae of our childrens education, starting from pre-school. Parents throw huge sums of money on schools, private tutors, extra-curricular activities in the belief that these will work to the childs benefit, whereas all it does is strip away the childs value system.

Even though I agree that the environmental dynamics have changed dramatically, I really wonder if we, the parents, are not doing an immense disservice to our children ? Are we not mollycoddling the next generation, when we should in reality be teaching them self-reliance, independance of thought, and the ability to act for themselves and to take responsibility for those actions ?

Farewell to old friends

The below is an old email written to dear friends before their departure for foreign shores.

My dear friends,

In your last days here, I have unfortunately not been able to spend as much time with you all, as I had intended to - nor say all the things that I wanted to, due to my affliction with tonsilitis. Maybe it is all for the better - but I did not want to spare you and hence this short letter to express our thoughts as you depart in a few days for Australia.

What does one say when the time is nigh to bid adieu' to loved ones ? So many thoughts swirl around in our minds - memories of days past (almost 11 years here in Dubai and so many more back home) and of laughters shared - trials and tribulations borne together, and of course now the looming presence of the void that faces us tomorrow. The bonds of happiness are forged slowly over time, so slowly in fact that we scarcely heed them, till the day they are suddenly torn apart. In that interim, we take for granted the presence of loved ones around us, expecting the good times to last forever and keeping any thoughts of parting ways to our subconcious.

And the nagging question that keeps surfacing is - WHY ? Why do you have to go now ? Why are we not in a place that keeps us together - Why do our relationships have to suffer the turmoil of seperation yet again ? These very same questions can be seen, flitting as shadows, on the faces of our loved ones, revealing the grief suppressed, and the absences already felt, though the day for departing has yet to dawn.

The answer of course lies in the fact that each mans future is forged by the pressures exerted on him, and his response to the same. Every person is unique, in his wants and desires and in his responses to those stresses. Our characters have been shaped by such forces, and will give us strength to tide these times, till the cycle completes and we are all on the same soil again.
At the moment we feel as if our family has been torn asunder, not knowing how soon our paths shall cross again. I cannot even begin to imagine the anguish felt by our children, who have grown so close, and in whose companionship, we the parents drew comfort. Our minds were always at peace when we knew that they were with each other, a semi-independant cell, needing no supervision. Safe in the comfort of a kindred culture, similar dispositions and a common heritage. It is definitely a boon that, they do not as yet comprehend the concept of time too well, else their sorrow would have made ours the deeper still.

Anyway, one looks for comfort in thoughts of the tomorrows to come - of days in the future spent together "again" in a place filled with golden light, our children big and strong, and a road ahead that carries us together to infinity. The road to happiness is paved with sorrows and tribulations. Hard decisions are a fact of everymans life. One faces them with what courage one possesses, and strength is demanded of both, the ones departing and the ones staying back. You leave these shores as pioneers, forging a path that others may tread on. We shall eagerly await tidings from you - and your progress in the new land shall be followed with keen interest.
Go with God and our good thoughts and wishes for your prosperity and happiness.
So till we meet again, my Siblings, my Family, my Friends - we remain diminished but resolute, sad but happy, for in the words of the Bard "Parting is Such Sweet Sorrow" !!

Corporate Life - Leadership 2

I can write reams and reams on leadership, without having read much on the topic. Just by observation one can sense leaders and of course differing types of leadership skills. People put varying emphasis on different types of leadership traits and it is evident that quite often one persons leader is another's follower.

I personally, favor the charismatic motivational leader. The one who can get up on the podium and convince people to do his bidding. Who inspires extraordinary efforts, and hence extraordinary results. I guess, this is a product of having watched a bit too many movies !! I once had the honour, a very long time ago, of being in the same elevator in Bombay House, with Mr Ratan Tata. I can still distinctly remember his aura and personality. He had what is called gravitas !! The natural air of someone in command without having to assert it. I doubt whether anyone having met him, would disagree.

In corporate life, one mostly comes across Positional Leaders, i.e. people put into leadership situations by dint of their position in the Company. Quite often, if not natural, or not adequately trained, they have absolutely no skills to lead. They are probably superb administrators or technocrats, but quite often have been put in that position through seniority in the organisation. A very good friend of mine recently asked me rhetorically whether the best salesman would be promoted to become the General Manager ? The answer is, of course, not. It takes much more than just one skill to be a good leader. But this is a point of view.

In organisations people are put into positions of leadership in exactly this manner. As expected they do significant damage in terms of demotivation and generating sub-par performance from their reportees. You can recognise these people, by their reticence in public, their aversion to public speaking, their ineptitude in social settings and their obvious comfort in minutae. People working for them, given the opportunity, will move. This has a huge cost on the organisation in terms of attrition which is quite often ignored or overlooked.

I have colleagues who, however argue for this process, stating that technical expertise is of utmost importance, and that communication skills and charisma either do not matter, or can be learned. I beg to differ!!

One either has these qualities or does not. All that can be done is hone the skills or polish delivery. Positional leaders are effective up to a certain level of seniority, beyond which they can cause damage. No matter what field one works in, an ability to lead and provide direction differentiates between effective and ineffective leaders. Having worked once with such a "techie" I say with no hesitation, that I would not like to repeat the experience. I recently read an article that stated that when people resign, an overwhelming proportion are leaving their line managers and not their organisations.

By my observation, managers tend to fall into two camps, when it comes to their requirements for top class performance. One set believes that good systems and well defined processes is all that is required to get world beating performance. People then become secondary. The other set believe and insist on having the best people in the right job.
I stand firmly for the second category.

What about you ?