On Leadership and Courage

There are many qualities required for being a leader — integrity, practical intelligence, self awareness, an intuitive understanding about people, vision, tenacity, creativity and the ability to connect the dots.  There is one more quality, which I would like to talk about in this article.  That is courage.

Courage is the number one prerequisite for being a leader.  All other qualities, important as they are, would come to naught without courage.

Courage is the resolve to go ahead and act in the face of uncertainty.  People with courage do not become immobilized by uncertainty; they take charge and move into the unknown.  They do not wait for the puzzle to be solved, and all questions to be answered before taking decisions.  They act based on trust, as much as out of the confidence coming from information.  Trust involves risk.  To trust is to be adventurous. This spirit of adventure strikes a chord in others who wish they could do the same; and they become followers.  This is the way leaders are made.  Leaders are not born; they are made.  They are made — invented by themselves through exploration, risk-taking and learning from their experience.

Leaders have the courage to speak their mind; when they know a hundred other voices could be different from theirs.  It takes courage to speak softly, but firmly, when there is shouting and cacophony all around.  It takes courage to communicate, when there is a real chance of being misunderstood or even ridiculed. Above all, it takes courage to be true to oneself.

Courage is a great virtue; second only to gratitude, which is the mother of all virtues, and the greatest of them all.  Gratitude gives you a heart that opens to the world, and everyone and everything that the world offers.  Courage makes you go ahead and embrace the world with such a heart–a heart that is open to the world and all its possibilities.

Courage is humble, not boastful.  There is no bravado.  If one dares to do something, it is because it appears to be the right thing to do, based on deep reflection, and evaluation of all available options. There is no pursuit of heroism, or the desire to stand out from the rest.  Courage is just an expression of one’s self, one’s integrity.

Courage enables a leader to be fair, when partisanship is the norm; and to act in the larger interest, when parochialism is the norm.  It takes courage, drawn from one’s deep spiritual reserves, to be humane and considerate, when the easier option would have been to move into combat mode.  It takes more courage to choose reconciliation over the strident calls for retribution.

Today we need more and more leaders, who embrace the world with courage, with hearts full of gratitude.  What we need today is not valour, but true courage.

Book Review: “The Power of Pull”

Review of “The Power of Pull: How Small Moves, Smartly Made, Can Set Big Things in Motion” by John Hagel III, John Seely Brown and Lang Davison; Basic Books, 2010.

In the epilogue to the “Power of Pull” the authors write: “As we make our passion our profession, we begin to see that our potential is far greater than we previously believed.” This is a liberating message that runs as a leitmotif throughout the book.
In the Introduction, the authors write: “If we are going to succeed in this rapidly changing world, we face two challenges: making sense of the changes around us, and making progress in this increasingly unfamiliar world. …. This book takes on both challenges–it is our goal to help you make sense and to help you make progress.” The authors further clarify their purpose behind this book in the epilogue: “Our hope, though, is that by exploring the power of pull and providing a high-level road map for all of us as we seek to navigate the difficult journey from the world of push to the world of pull, we can enable our readers to overcome the fear by helping them to understand the real opportunities that lie ahead for those of us who master these techniques.” The book achieves its stated objectives. The book gives a high-level road map and deals with some techniques for moving from the world of push to the world of pull. It also tells us what opportunities lie ahead when we make this difficult, but necessary, transition.

According to the authors, Pull is about pursuing our passion; finding others who share our passion, but bring in different perspectives; and creating conditions, which increase our likelihood of meeting such people. Creating such conditions may be termed as “shaping serendipity”. This is an important insight gained from the book: “serendipity can be shaped, at least within limits.” We can shape serendipity by bringing paying attention to the three elements–environments, practices and preparedness. Being open to serendipitous encounters involves “deep listening” and relationship-building skills.

Another key message repeated throughout the book is about the importance of shifting our focus from “knowledge stocks” to “knowledge flows”. The authors have dealt with this idea in no uncertain terms: “In this second wave, the sources of economic value move from stocks of knowledge to flows of new knowledge. Tacit knowledge becomes more valuable than explicit knowledge as the edge transforms the core.”

To clarify what the authors mean by the second wave, let us look at the three waves they talk about. The first wave of the Big Shift was the development of powerful and affordable infrastructure for computing and communication. The second wave is what the authors call the shift from knowledge stocks to knowledge flows. The third wave is the transformation of institutions as a result of the first two. The impact of the first wave is apparent to all of us. What we need to really grasp now is the importance of shifting attention from knowledge stocks to knowledge flows.

Further on, the authors write: “Many analysts have noted the increasing importance of intangible assets in business, but people often think about these assets in static form–for example, stocks of knowledge, established brands, and existing relationships.” What is more important in the emerging paradigm is to continuously refresh these assets by collaborating with others, not only within organizations, but increasingly across organizational boundaries. That has important implications for the way think about knowledge management and information systems.

Some of my reflections on reading the book are summarized below:

1. What would be the functions of the institution in the emerging world order, particularly in the light of the Big Shift that the authors talk about? May be, organizations would transform themselves as platforms for individuals to connect and collaborate with others, amplifying individual efforts and helping them to pursue their passion. Would organizations leaders have the courage, conviction and humility to put the pursuit of individual passion at the center of the organization’s purpose? Would they, and particularly the investors, be able to tolerate the uncertainty that goes with such a radical change?

2. How should HR policies and practices be shaped in a world in which individual differences and being on the edge are valued? Would HR have the courage to question the assumptions behind current assessment and appraisal systems that are designed to compare employees with one another, and unwittingly encourage knowledge stocks rather than knowledge flows?

3. How will organizational quality initiatives and process models evolve as the emphasis shifts from knowledge stocks to knowledge flows? What would be role for standardization of processes in the service industry?

4. Knowledge management would become the art of facilitating connections and collaborations among people around relevant problems, rather than efforts to lock down knowledge in repositories. Information systems would build in greater capabilities for people to quickly access and collaborate with others over information available in near real-time through multiple channels including the mobile.

5. Training & Development systems, with annual TRA and training calendar is essentially based on a push paradigm. Even just-in-time learning through sophisticated e-learning systems is only an extension of the same paradigm. In the increasingly dynamic environment, such a “basket of programs” and “configurable packages with learning objects” can at best be a supplement to practices that facilitate faster and more relevant learning on the job. What would these new practices be?

Overall, the book has served the purpose of prodding me to explore further in the areas of management and leadership. I am sure you would gather your own insights and questions by reading this valuable book, and so I would recommend this book. But be prepared to spend some time going through it with patience. Greater attention to the editorial process and honest criticism from a few more of their collaborators could have helped the authors to improve on clarity and simplicity of expression, thereby making the central messages stand out more powerfully.

<< This review was originally posted on Amazon:  http://www.amazon.com/review/R1LL51FDR5SAIT/ref=cm_cr_rdp_perm >>

Review of “Common Purpose” – Important Lessons on Leadership by Joel Kurtzman

Excerpts from my review of Joel Kurtzman’s book, “Common Purpose: How Great Leaders Get Organizations to Achieve the Extraordinary”

The byline for “Common Purpose” by Joel Kurtzman reads “How Great Leaders Get Organizations to Achieve the Extraordinary”. The book does justice to this claim. It tells us how great leaders get organizations comprising ordinary people to do extraordinary things and achieve excellence. The crux of it is captured in the title itself – they get people to share a common purpose, in which everyone can find meaning and joy.

The insights that the book gives are very valuable for leaders and aspiring leaders at all levels. It tells how the regime of command and control needs to be replaced with the culture of collaboration. Talking about ‘The New Rules of Employment’ in Chapter Two, Kurtzman says, “People have a need to be heard, to be respected, and to control their space. Great leaders–common purpose leaders–grant them their space, give them their trust, allow them responsibility, and present them with opportunities and resources to do their jobs. But great leaders also hold people accountable. In other words, great leaders treat the people they work with as adults, which the current employment compact supports.” I think this short paragraph itself is worth a thousand pages on leadership. What more is there about great leadership? Respecting people’s needs for space and freedom, trusting them as adults, ensuring that they have opportunities, resources and skills to do a great job, and holding them accountable for results.

Full review is available on http://www.amazon.com/review/RNBHBCS46N453/ref=cm_cr_rdp_perm

Risk Management

Many projects fail not due to the lack of effort or commitment, but due to the lack of adequate attention to the potential risks.  Optimism is an important quality of a successful leader; but a healthy dose of pessimism makes the project grounded in reality.  The trick is to be pessimistic without being negative.

Is risk analysis an art or a science?  I would say it is an art.  If it were a science, you probably know the risks pretty well in advance, and then they stop being the really important risks.  The real risks are those whose probability of occurrence and impact are difficult to predict by using analytical models.  What then are the alternatives to discover and cover these potential risks?

I would say, the ability to listen keenly is the most important attribute required to manage risks effectively.  Listen to the subtle messages, often half-spoken.  Amplify and explore them in depth to bring out the nuances of the perceived risks.  Ask questions, and listen without rationalization. If you have a choice, go to the HR department and ask for a list of people who got the least ratings in the last performance appraisal. Randomly choose a few of them to be part of your project team. They will tell you more about what the real risks are, than your star team members!

In a recent book titled What You Don’t Know: How Great Leaders Prevent Problems Before They Happen, Michael A. Roberto narrates how William LeMessurier, the famous structural engineer of Citicorp building in Manhattan responded to a seemingly innocuous question by an engineering student and eventually discovered a flaw in his structural design for the building. The book also describes how LeMessurier took personal responsibility to rectify the error.  (For excerpts from the book, see: http://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/article.cfm?articleid=2285)  The way LeMessurier responded to the potential risk, though it was discovered rather late (after the building was completed), is a case study in the ethics of engineering and project management.

It would also be helpful to use system dynamics modeling as a method for risk analysis.  With system dynamics modeling you bring out various assumptions and mental models regarding the interplay of various parameters and inter-relationships that comprise the system.  In reality, the technical and social/organizational dimensions are very much inter-related.  As a first level of analysis we may analyze them separately; but to get the complete picture that reveals the greater risks, we need to see the interplay of various dimensions.  This is facilitated by system dynamics modeling.  The use of system dynamics modeling for risk management in complex engineering systems, with reference to NASA projects is given in a research paper by an MIT team: http://www.informs-sim.org/wsc05papers/160.pdf Also, see excellent study material on system dynamics, developed under the guidance of Prof. Jay Forrester, available on MIT OpenCourseWare:  http://ocw.mit.edu/OcwWeb/Sloan-School-of-Management/15-988Fall-1998-Spring-1999/CourseHome/index.htm

Giving and receiving feedback for performance improvement

Core Idea: Feedback is perhaps the most important process that we have for improving performance – our own, and that of our team members.  Skills in giving and receiving feedback are indispensable for every manager, leader, educator and parent.

How do scientists at ISRO or NASA put a satellite in its correct orbit and orient it with such precision?  How does a missile intercept moving targets in mid-air?  These feats of high performance become possible through a system of sophisticated feedback control.

Why do some organisms survive and thrive, while others perish and become extinct?  Again we see that feedback systems are in operation in nature.  Some organisms receive feedback from the environment and develop the needed abilities to adapt.  They survive.  Others do not take feedback or are too slow to react to the environmental changes.  They perish.

We see companies which are in constant touch with the market and their customers.  They adpat quickly to changes in the economic, political, legal, social and demographic environment.  They track changing customer preferences.  They are in constant dialogue internally and externally to give and receive feedback.  Such organizations thrive.

Some companies cut themselves off from the environment.  They sink in their own brew.

The same is the case with teams as well. Teams (as well as departments in organizations) which are constantly in touch with other teams and operate as part of feedback loops perform much better than others which are too internally focused.  Many teams comprising of bright individuals, who also work in harmony with each other, fail because they lack the constant dialogue with those outside the team – their customers and other stakeholders.  (This is an idea expressed very forcefully in a book that I am currently reading – “X-teams: How to Build Teams That Lead, Innovate and Succeed Teams” by Deborah Ancona and Henrik Bresman.)

What about individuals?  How important is feedback for their performance and personal development?  No doubt, we agree that it is absolutely important.  Without feedback, individuals stagnate.

Recall the basic concepts that we might have learnt through the famous Johari Window.  There are a few things about us, which we know and others know.   Then there are a few things that we know about ourselves,  but others do not know.  We were too shy to share them with others, out of a sense of modesty or shame.  If these are things that others should know, we better tell them.  There are also a few things that others know about us, but we may not be aware of.  They might never have told us, and we never bothered to ask if they had something to tell us.  This quadrant offers high potential for personal growth and development.  By being willing to seek feedback and listen without defence, we get valuable insights about ourselves – both our strenghts and areas for improvement.

There are also aspects of our personality that are still unknown to us as well as others.  They remain in the mystery of the unconscious.  I am not going to deal with this quadrant right now.  I may just hint that we get to know our unconscious by a variety of means such as paying attention to our dreams, observing our mood swings, taking note of something that we say or do without much thought and by observing other people’s reaction to our words and body language.

Coming back to the subject of feedback it would be useful to keep in mind a few guidelines for giving and receiving feedback.  The following guidelines would help us to give feedback more effectively:

1. Describe your observations, rather than pass judgements about intentions or motivations behind the behaviour.
2. Point out specific instances of behaviour, rather than generalize across different behaviours.  By being specific about your observation, you ensure that subjectivity is minimized in the feedback process.  You also do not leave too many things to the imagination of the receiver.  Giving generalized feedback may be easier for you, but it leaves the receiver wondering what it is that he or she has to correct.
3. Separate feedback from advice and suggestions.
4. Give feedback only if you are genuinely interested in a behavioural change in the receiver of the feedback.  This may be because you love the person (as in a family relationship) or you expect improvements in product or service quality (as in a customer-supplier relationship).  Whatever the case may be, avoid giving feedback only to show how powerful you are, or how much better off you are than the other person. Feedback should never be an ego trip.
5. Refrain from giving feedback if there is hardly anything that the receiver can do about it.
6. Ensure that you build trust and convey respect by expressing gratitude and giving feedback about things that you appreciate.  Do not limit the power of feedback by using it only for correction of undesirable behaviour.
7. Word negatives as areas for improvement.  But do not camouflage it as positives and leave the receiver confused.
8. Give feedback at the earliest appropriate occasion.
9. Chek to ensure that the receiver of the feedback has clearly understood what you wanted to convey.

Receiving feedback is harder than giving feedback.  But there is nothing that is as useful as honest feedback when it comes to your own personal development.  We must count ourselves as lucky if we are in the company of people who give us feedback on a regular basis.  If we are not that lucky, we must take the initiative to ask for feedback.  We can ask for feedback from different people – our family members, friends, colleagues, customers, suppliers, teachers etc.  Taking feedback and acting on them is one of the most effective ways of improving our performance and developing our capabilities to higher levels.

The following guidelines would be useful in receiving feedback:

1. Withhold judgement, until you have got all that the person giving feedback wants to tell you. If the feedback comes to you in a conversation, ensure that you apply all the skills of being a good listener.  Be willing to listen, and also demonstrate your willingness through appropriate body language. If the communication is in writing, read carefully, looking not only for the factual content, but also the emotions behind what is expressed in writing.
2. Ask questions for clarification without becoming defensive.  Ask for additional data if required; but do so politely.
3. There is hardly any point in telling the giver of feedback how wrong he or she is.  If you honestly feel that you are right, and that the person giving the feedback has misunderstood you, of course you need to make it clear to him or her.  But wait until you have listened to the whole story.  Then take a few minutes to compose yourself.  Respond without aggression or excessive modesty.
4. Do not brood over negative feedback.  Take it and process it rationally, segregating the more important points from the less important ones.  This type of a ‘thinking approach’ helps you to retain perspective and prevents over-correction.
5. Do not belittle yourself by recounting the negative feedback given by others.  It is for you to act on, not for public confession.
6. Develop some understanding about various psychological defence mechanisms that come in the way of receiving feedback.  These are behaviours such as aggression, withdrawal, denial, displacement, rationalization, suppression, sublimation, projection etc.  We need not be professional psychologists, but we all need to constantly work on increasing our self awareness.  We must identify our recurrent patterns of defence.  This will help us to get out from our own unhealthy behavioural traps.
7. Develop a network of development partners (trusted friends and family members), who are interested in your welfare.  Ask them for their honest feedback.  When you receive feedback, which you are not sure about, verify with your trusted partner.

Feedback is a communication process, and so it can suffer from all the common problems in communication.  Constantly work on improving your communication skill to be effective in giving and receiving feedback.

Reflections on co-creation

Dr. C.K. Prahalad observes that value is not created by the organization and sold to the customer; rather value is co-created along with the customers. In the new paradigm, organizations will have to learn to adapt and be agile to the emergence of new possibilities which are beyond the vision of the founders, and the strategies of the executive team.

Organizations operate as networks of stakeholders. Possibilities are discovered when members of the network engage in dialogue. They may not have the same vision, but they become ready to share, and even go to the extent of being selfless, because in some mysterious way that establishes a connection with their deeper aspirations.

Management in the co-creation paradigm is mutual and collaborative. The focus moves to management of relationships rather than resources.

Co-creation does not happen through restructuring or re-engineering. In fact often there is no need to tinker with the organization structure or hierarchy. Even flattening the organization may not be required. What is required for co-creation to happen is an openness to working together. It is mutual respect. Look at how a parent and child co-create a sand castle on the beach. See how they enjoy it! In the process they both derive value — an enjoyable evening on the beach.

Co-creation is not customization. Customization is getting a different dressing for your sandwich. But it would be co-creation if you could get into the kitchen and stand by, occasionally giving your suggestions for the recipe, or tasting the item and giving feedback. In fact traditional kitchens are the best places of co-creation.

Co-creation is not choosing a different set of options when you buy a Dell computer. But it is co-creation when a child walks into a Build-a-Bear Workshop, builds her own teddy bear and walks out with unspeakable excitement. It makes her the happiest person on earth.

Choosing a different elective for your University course is not co-creation. But it would be co-creation if you had opportunities to collaborate with the teachers and make use of the resources at the University to put together a course for you as an individual learner. Co-creation is not choosing from a menu, it is creating the menu.

Intuition and Impulse

What is the difference between an intuitive decision and an impulsive decision?  The difference can of course be known from the outcome.  Intuitive decisions lead to success, impulsive decisions lead to failure.  That is fine; but is there a way to tell beforehand whether your decision is an intuitive one or an impulsive one?

An intuitive decision is a well thought out decision.  Contrary to popular notions, it is not one that is made on the spur of the moment. It is based on the gut feel answer to a question that had been in your mind for quite some time.  The gap between the question and the intuitive answer is often a few days, or in some cases it may be only a few minutes.  But in any case there is a time delay between the question and the answer, or the dilemma and the decision.  Intuition is not related to speed of decision making.  It is just another way of decision making.  Intuitive decisions may sometimes be arrived at quickly, but more often they take time.

Leaders are good at the art of intuitive decision making.  Why?  Because their job is to make decisions in the absence of enough data.  They are dealing with things about which there cannot be enough data.  They are dealing with the future state of things.  They have to put together all the disparate pieces of information from various sources, connect the dots and arrive at a decision by intuition.  There is hardly a way to explain how they arrived at the choice. There are often explanations in retrospect, but they are given only to satisfy our need to make things fit neatly into a logical structure of decision making.

As contrasted with intuitive decision making, impulsive decision making is deciding on the spur of the moment.  There is hardly any time gap between the question and the answer.  In management, speed of decision making is often considered to be a virtue.  Thus unwittingly, we praise the impulsive decision maker.

Many businesses have fallen due to the impulsive decisions made by their managers.  Intuition helps a manager to take moderate, calculated risks, whereas impulse lead to foolhardiness.  However much the sage of Omaha may use data and analytics, in the end his decisions are intuitive.  His success is phenomenal.  Likewise is the case with Bill Gates, whose intuition led him to invest himself in the business of PC software.  On the other hand there is Nick Leeson whose impulsive decisions led to the fall of Britain’s oldest merchant bank.  Leeson did not use his intuition.  Rather he blocked his intuition, from interfering with his impulse.  He bet his bank on impulse, wiping out close to a billion Dollars in trading loss.  Barings had to fold up due to impulsive decisions, not intuitive decisions.

How much of the recent economic turmoil can be attributed to people in responsible positions taking impulsive decisions?  I believe, quite a lot.  In fact most of it is the result of impulsive decision making by individuals who distrusted their own intuitions and relied on impulse.  In a complex inter-related system of economic entities, impulsive decisions wreak havoc.  Impulsive behaviour is mob behaviour.  Intuition is nature’s gift to individuals, not to mobs.  Economic recovery is the result of individuals paying attention to their intuitions, without being guided by their impulses.

On the issue of Student Motivation

Teachers often ask the question: ‘How to improve the motivation of my students?’ There is a genuine concern expressed here. Teachers naturally know that the performance of their students hinges around the issue of motivation.

The Teacher as a Leader

A teacher’s main responsibility is to lead the students to achieve greater performance. Thus we can say that an effective teacher is an effective leader, and teaching is leading. Thus leadership development becomes the central theme of faculty development.

Effective leaders are those who empower their followers and are empowered by the followers. In a way it is mutual empowerment. Power is not in the leader or in the followers, but in the mutual relationship.

The power of a good teacher is of a very special type. It is power that comes from his or her ability to influence the student, through expertise and genuine concern for the well-being and development of the student. The teacher leads by demanding and obtaining higher and higher performance from the students. Good teachers get the students to set stretch targets, and helps them to achieve them. The teacher offers himself or herself as the most important resource for the students to achieve their goals.

Leaders Learn the Art of Motivation

Effective teachers are students of human motivation, and keep learning about it throughout their career, just as they spend time updating knowledge in their respective areas of specialization. Teachers who learns the art of motivation raise their role to that of leaders.

Among the various models used for understanding motivation, I find that the one given by David C. McClleland, developed during his tenure at Harvard, and elaborated in his book ‘The Achieving Society’ (1961) is highly relevant for educators, as well as leaders in every field.

McClelland’s theory talks about three types of motivation: Achievement, Power and Affiliation. Which of these correlates strongly with academic performance? It is Achievement Motivation. So the question for the teacher becomes ‘How can I nurture achievement motivation in my students?’

What is meant by Achievement Motivation? In essence, it is the motivation to excel. This can be expressed as the need to surpass standards, break records set by oneself or by others, do better than what one has done till now, do something unique, discover new ways of doing things, create something original and pursue a chosen goal with passion for a long time.

The Achievement Motivated individual sets clear goals, wherein he sees a reasonable possibility of success, and then stretches himself to accomplish the goals. He doesn’t need certainty of success; rather he prefers to set goals where the likelihood of success and failure are fairly balanced, say 50-50. That is because he likes to take on challenges which are neither too easy nor extremely difficult for his skill level and resources.

The Achievement Motivated individual persists in the goal-directed behaviour, without easily giving up in the face of difficulties. Only if he has sufficient reason to believe that the goal is really unachievable, does he give up and refocus on a new goal that would satisfy his achievement need. He likes clear and frank feedbak, and uses measurement of the outcomes for obtaining feedback about how well he is doing.

Now, isn’t that the kind of student that every teacher would like to teach? One who sets clear goals for academic success, and works hard to achieve them. One who takes feedback about performance, and tries to improve his performance from one test to the next.

The reality is that the vast majority of students in an average school or college are not achievement motivated. This does not mean that they have no motivation; it only means that their motivation is not related to the need for achievement. They are in fact motivated enough to do a lot of things, other than work on their academic areas. When a teacher talks about motivating his students, knowingly or unknowingly he is talking about arousing the achievement motivation in his or her students, and helping them to excel in their studies. How can the teacher do this successfully?

How to arouse Achievement Motivation?

Motivation is that which makes someone or something move. For living beings, especially human beings, this motive force can come from within. We call this internal motive force as motivation.

Motivation produces goal-directed movement. Remember, there is a goal towards which the movement is happening. So the pre-requisite for motivation to be present is the presence of a goal. This would mean that if a teacher wants to motivate his or her student, one of the tasks would be to help the student to clarify his or her goal. And then help the student to stay focused on the goal, inspite of distractions that come on the way.

In my sessions with fresh engineering graduates, I help them to clarify their goals for a two year period. Before coming to goal-setting, I engage them in a number of activities that arouse achievement related thoughts and emotions in their minds. I help them to recollect their experiences of ‘peak performance.’ Invariably I have found that every person, even the one with average or below average academic record, has had some experience in which he or she set a goal and stretched to achieve that. An experience in which he or she worked with a clear goal and achieved that, or at least got close enough to success. Even failure would have been delightful because of the worthiness of the goal, and the confidence gained by stretching oneself beyond self-imposed limits.

In achivement motivation programmes of longer duration, I ask the participatns to write creative stories, first without inputs on achievement motivation, and thereafter following a systematic schema (achivement syndrome), which characterises achievement thinking. If there is enough time, I engage them in achievement related games and activities, which give them experiential feedback about their motivational profile, and bring to surface their latent achievement needs. One of the important components of the programme is the consistent use of achievement language, which arouses achievement imagery.

Teacher’s Language Influences the Student’s Motivation

As I mentioned earlier, the Teacher’s role is that of a Leader. A teacher-leader not only kindles the spark of motivation in the student, but also keeps the fire burning. How does the teacher do this? it is through the appropriate ue of language. It is the language used by the teacher, including body language, that kindles or douses the spark of motivation in the students. It is not a matter of being technically right, but more a matter of how things are conveyed.

What is the language that arouses and sustains motivation in the learners? Good teachers, just like good leaders, somehow get it right. Mentioned below are some aspects of the language that motivates learners:

1. Conveys respect for the learner as a person. No devaluing statements, either explicitly in words or implicitly through body language.
2. Conveys positive expectations and the teacher’s belief in the ability of the learner.
3. Focuses on the learner’s goals, with a continuous effort to clarify, and if required, recalibrate the goals based on performance.
4. Acknowledges and appreciates improvement in the learner’s performance as well as the efforts put in by the learner. Does not devalue the learner even if he or she fails.

What can Teachers Do?

What are the practical steps for the teacher to address the issue of student motivation? Here are some of them:

1. Consistently use the language that arouses and sustains motivation, as discussed in the previous section.
2. Highlight and recognize achievement, even small ones if a learner has stretched beyond his or her usual limit. Celebrate the success of the learners. Do not be stingy in praising the learners. This does not come naturally to many people, and a conscious effort needs to be made to overcome this culturally induced limitation on the part of the teacher’s behaviour.
3. Give clear feedback on a continuous basis. Focus on behaviour rather than personality of the learner.  Be sensitive to the feelings of the learner, especially when giving negative feedback.
4. Seek feedback from the learners directly and through other channels such as the formal feedback system of the institution.  Close the loop by acting on the feedback and checking back with the learners.
5. Beware of the need for controlling power. Distinguish between controlling the process and controlling the person. Controlling the process (for example, submission of an assignment on time) is important for getting the desired results. Attempts to control the person will either lead to submission and dependency or aggression and disobedience.
6. Model achievement-oriented behaviour by engaging in research, exploring the subject matter in depth, striving to be a better teacher year after year, learning from feedback and experimenting with innovative learning methodologies.

That’s all for the timebeing. In a future blog, I plan to write about teaching as the process of co-designing and co-creation.

Vision and Execution as the two dimensions of leadership

Consider vision and execution as the two dimensions of leadership. Leaders score high in both vision and execution. They have clarity of vision, think out of the box, see what exists only as a possibility to be realized in the future. They are able to work out strategies to convert the possibility into reality. They also have the discipline to work out detailed plans, delegate responsibilities, ensure resources, review progress and follow through to completion.

What about people who are effective in executing plans, even if it calls for moving the mountains? Yes, they are the movers of the world. They make things happen, and that too pretty quickly and on budget. They are the traditionally efficient managers.

You would also remember someone who deeply influenced you by a very articulate presentation of a vision for the future. He or she could be a manager, a teacher, a politician or from any other profession. Yes, that person literally shook you up. Such people are the shakers of status quo.

For the sake of completion, let me also refer to another type, who neither move nor shake. They may be called laggers. The word may not be in the dictionary. But you know it means someone who lags behind. (Laggers may not be laggards, and so I am using a different word.)

Vision and Execution as the two dimensions of leadership

Footnote: The term ‘movers and shakers’ appears in the following poem by Arthur O’Shaughnessy. The poem is titled ‘Ode’

We are the music-makers,
And we are the dreamers of dreams,
Wandering by lone sea-breakers,
And sitting by desolate streams;
World-losers and world-forsakers,
On whom the pale moon gleams:
Yet we are the movers and shakers
Of the world for ever, it seems.


You may like to read the entire poem. It is on http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Ode_(O’Shaughnessy)

Leadership is the art of making us do what we always wanted to do

Last night I was at a New Year party on the terrace of our apartment building in Trivandrum, Kerala. There were two young singers -Anand and Latha – supported by Anand’s laptop to add spice and spirit to the party. You know, Keralaites have a way of enjoying parties which is very different from that of Punjabis. We talk and talk while our Punjabi friends dance and dance.

Anand had a tough time making us join the chorus and also sway to his tunes. But in the end, he did it. Everyone, the grandparents and grandchildren included, danced to the beats of the latest Hindi songs and the hit Malayalam songs.

How did Anand manage to raise our party spirit? By sheer persistence. And of course talent. But I think it was persistence that did it. He didn’t give up when his calls to chorus fell on deaf ears. He continued to sing, and little by little he conquered our hearts. You know, Anand can make a Malayalee dance.

I am just thinking about the title of the book by Louis Gerstner: ‘Who Says Elephants Can’t Dance? …’ I really don’t know what Gerstner did or didn’t do to turn around IBM, or whether at all IBM can be compared to an elephant or whether dancing must be taught to those huge pachyderms. But one thing I know: human beings have dance hidden in them. They would be natural dancers, if it weren’t for the culture that criticizes and tries to educate them into serious adults.

Anand made loose-lipped, stiff-necked, tight-hipped Malayalees dance. And he didn’t do it by force; he didn’t impose it on us. He persisted and made sure that we did what we always wanted to do, if it weren’t for our self-conscious self-criticism. He made us do what we enjoyed doing. That is leadership in action from the young man, Anand.