Let us gain each other through forgiveness

Every day, when I kneel to pray, for the smallest wrong I had done and for the biggest blunder, I ask for forgiveness from God with the assurance that I will receive it. For I know, God is love, and he wants me to get over my weakness and he won't deny me another chance to prove it to myself.

When we do something wrong - we are doing committing that sin towards two persons - primarily to God, and second to the person or group aimed at. Similarly, When we ask for forgiveness, God examines if our heart is as clean, and if we are as forgiving toward others who have offended us, as we want Him to be toward us. Given that we are mere human beings and God, the divine and sovereign power in the Universe, if we can't forgive someone for their wrong-doing or curses towards us, how can He forgive our offenses?

As a person, there are two things we oughta do:

1. Forgive anyone who has offended us, even if they're not regretful about it. Perhaps, they don't see it then. They'll realize it soon. Forgiving is a step towards healing ourselves more than anything
2. Ask for forgiveness from anyone who has offended us. It only requires a little humility and a heartfelt 'sorry'.

Any follower of Jesus Christ, ought to understand and strictly follow what the Bible clearly states: "God will deal with us likewise, if we do not forgive our brother." And I, for all selfish reasons do not want to miss out on God's forgiveness. Believe me, an unforgiving heart breeds hatred, and in that, we give the devil the throne of our hearts to rule over. It's only a path to doom for us.

Inasmuch as I may have wanted not to, I know that I have offended many, may be intentionally, sometimes not - To give names, there are many - for all such things, I earnestly seek each one of your forgiveness, hoping and assured, that in the kindness of your hearts, you will.

Especially people bearing the name of Christ are called to win over another by forgiving and removing from memory every negative feeling and every negative word that was uttered against you, your dear ones. You are all in all certainty good persons. Do not let any thought, or any act of the past withhold your forgiveness from each other.

I do understand that it is hard to put the past behind and forgive someone, but We do not gain anything by not forgiving our brothers. If we do forgive, we gain a brother. And, that, friends, is a godly act. Not just forgiving in your hearts, but also demonstrate it through your words and actions.

Let's talk, rebuke each other, and if one of us understands and repents, we have won to each to ourselves. I didn't want to sound preachy, but, this message had to shared with all of you since months. Couldn't put it away any longer.

Management indecisiveness costing employees!

As I read this week's Corporate Dossier (CD) (March 8, 09) of The Economic Times, it instantly connected with the thoughts going on in my head.. Here's few quotes from CDs main article 'Take the Lead'

As bad news flows in unabated and more and more management blunders come to light, it becomes amply clear that the leadership in many companies have been caught off guard. They are unprepared to deal with a crisis of this magnitude.

This simply states that companies have been growing and only focusing on adding to their revenues. Well, they've been putting in enough investment towards identifying and mitigating risks, but perhaps the focus of the management or the risk teams was not complete enough. This is true especially of the large-sized organizations, which have got impacted most, and running around to catch-up.. in a, what's the word - 'Knee-jerk reaction'.

Their cluelessness is confusing their workforce even more. The scrapped projects, brutal layoffs, drastic pay-cuts, sudden top management reshuffles and unrealistic cost cuts all seem like knee-jerk reactions, not the proactive leadership that is the need of the hour.

Literally, if one has to look at the various management decisions that come through impacting every nook and corner of the organization, one would stand in awe witnessing the incompetence of their management to gauge and forecast with little accuracy about what may happen, what steps are to be taken. The incompetence displayed in forecasting is simply frustrating to employees. Though CEOs and Management pundits have been harping that 'the crisis is unprecedented' and 'times are uncertain', given the rapidity of the financial crisis that has struck corporate India, managements not being able to even see through a month or two if not a quarter, is perhaps sheer incompetence. I never though some journalist could be so blunt in mainstream media in their critique about the 'management boards' of Business India, but I was happy it came out. I only few days back wrote about this pattern of new decision a day and how it's impacting employees psyche at work everyday they step into their offices to work.

All the jing-bang around proactive leadership by top management is demonstrated at such times. Which is absolutely 'non-existent' in many organizations. Ha! What's expected from the lesser managers!?!

As Warren Buffet famously said, “It’s only when the tide ebbs, you find who is swimming naked”. Sadly, in this moment of crisis, many leaders have been found without the proverbial fig leaf to hide their shortcomings.

Just a few days ago, that I quoted this to someone. Well, as aptly as it's put here, the world is watching which are all the companies that were swimming naked. This crisis, if not anything, will make the genuinely strong corporations stronger, and the naked ones to disappear.

In all this game of talent, moolah and market share, unfortunately the management indecisiveness is costing employees dearly. As the saying goes, what you sow today, you will reap tomorrow. All such indecisive managements of business organizations better beware!

Sanitizing your recruitment process behaviorally!

Recruitment and Salesmen, I don’t find much difference between them considering the tactics they apply to get their targets achieved.

For an individual, a new hire to an organization, there’s a great deal of value he attaches to his recruiter. To him, the recruiter is the first-touch-point of the organization; and given that the initial interaction was to build a long-term relationship with the organization, and the nature of interaction is such, that all expectations are constructed right there.

In a rush to complete his targets for hiring, the recruiter make promises of which significant details communicated are half-truths. The one getting hired is at fault too, that in the excitement of an offer, they forget many a question to ask and get complete details, say about organization policies, pay structure, benefits, eligibility for benefits etc., and given the chance, recruiter is not also bothered to give complete information to the employee with the fear of losing a potential hire.

If the recruiter fails to explain the complexities or the dynamics of the industry / organization culture, it’s a sure shot forecast that the new hire will result in infant attrite. Take BPO industry for example, while this industry does attract a lot of employment with all the hype around the pay, facilities, benefits etc., But when it comes to operations and business dynamics, people stand confused and utterly disappointed and start making judgements about the company and the management. And from there the internal fight starts - within HR between recruitment and Generalist HR executives, and then it's Operations versus HR, and then who's to own up to the attrition?

It's not only frustrating, but a lot of cost involved in there - in recruitment, hiring, inducting, training, readying for operations.. phew.. all of it to lose because the recruiter was not involved / trained behaviorally to set expectations right and focus on a short-term target achievement but in brand-building through their interaction and targeting at a long-term association.

The best way to deal with this is to link up new hires attrition to individual recruiters' at least for a period of 6 months to a year on parameters decided by the management to make recruiters more responsible, and sanitize the recruitment process behaviorally. How else would the HR man impact employees positively and engage employees actively if not starting with recruitment?

Psychological impact of recession

I just ended a conversation with a friend from one of India's largest private banks. Totally frustrated, yet laughing throughout the conversation in a way of mockery, he gave vent to his frustration about the recent series of decisions announced within his organization and the communication styles adopted by his company. Surprisingly, he has nothing to hold against his managers. "What will the managers do? It's the company management's decision yaar," he says with certainty. His promotion which has been pending over a year was supposedly coming through with this new financial year has got stopped. Well, based on that maybe no increment or a marginal one going by the impact of global financial crisis. But, what he was not ready for, was the company not giving any of those, and on top of it, withholding his bonus as well.

An hour ago, I was at dinner with a manager from a ITeS company. His company is in the business of cost-saving for his clients, which has seen a slowdown but no negative impact. Of course, his company's ambitious targets were underachieved by a marginal percentage. Going by those standards, his org has had a phenomenal growth when compared to the industry standards. Still, there was crib about how erratically the company's management was responding to the 'uncertain future' of the industry by announcing a new decision every fortnight about a change in policy here, and of some new addition there. Companies are protecting their operating margins by ceasing all expenditure and cutting down on other luxuries that they could have afforded earlier, but that's not it.

Another media friend explains to me that as soon as the news of global slowdown was certain his company has gone for pay-cuts in its' employees salaries. Was the company impacted and how? The question remains unanswered.

Yet another friend from a small IT organization tells me about practices in his company - salary increments are happening on discretionary basis. Managers propose who they feel should be rewarded and the company does; end of story. Did they have a proven and reliable yardstick to measure that? Out of question for now. Internally, within the organization, going by various management decisions it looks the managements and board of directors of various Indian business organizations have perhaps not yet accurately gauged the impact of global slowdown on their respective companies, nor are they even able to foresee the changes expecting ahead of next two quarters. The shadily funny side of it is, even if they're able to, a dim picture is projected most of the time; because of which, corporate decisions are announced in a very unplanned manner every week or fortnight, without assessing the risk of that communication. With another breaking news, there's a new decision - not any good news, of course! No wonder smiles are missing on the floors at workplace!

The decisions which are mostly negative vary from job cuts, employee relocation, pay cuts, to withholding of bonuses, individual incentives, stopping payout of variable compensation, heavy cut-down on employee welfare expenditure which may include benefits like transport allowances to even rewards and recognition budgets. While those form the main content of employee compensation, the other components include cutting down on any company provided benefits like mobile expenses, pick-and-drop facilities, club memberships, even curbing on snacks vending machines and coffee vending machines. The pursuit for cost-cutting doesn't end there. Every new day may throw up a new idea for cost cutting, even a penny, and the company management would announce a 'decision' on it. Is this what's called 'penny-wise, pound foolish'? Time will tell.

Notwithstanding the fact that global recession has hit a few industries real hard even in India, and that companies ought to take measures to sustain and stay ahead of competition, there are a few companies (which haven't incurred losses, rather have seen growth) which have offered bonuses, given marginal (token) increments among other benefits. Given that an employee sees his growth aligned to that of the company's, expectations from a growing company are similarly calibrated. When those expectations are flushed away by a 'management decision', even though the company's slowed-down yet growing/profit-making the most important partners in the company's growth are disgruntled, and with more events happening around it, they're utterly dismayed.

When companies today want to focus on actively engaging employees with the organization, not disputing the fact that organizations are investing in their employees through training, work environment, resources etc., what they are missing out on is that the contextual elements surrounding the job and the employee at the workplace are getting so disturbed that there's more negativity that's getting into their heads and flowing out of it every day. Talk of positivity, it's almost missing!

From 'big' decisions like laying off employees, salary cuts to the 'small' decisions of not providing transport-reimbursements for business meetings, or removing vending machines in offices etc., employees are much negatively impacted day-in and day-out. With so much of negative mental / psychological impact of recession, it's surely gonna take sometime for impressions to look up! What say guys?

What is May Day?

The Historical Significance Of May Day Celebrations
Johannes T. Kangandjera
(Posted from an email forward)


This day is a commemoration of the historic struggle of the workers throughout the world against capitalism, exploitation, and for safe working conditions and respect for the dignity of workers. It came into being as a result of the successful demand, claims and demonstrations that was carried out under the umbrella of the Federation of Organised Trades and Labour Unions when it passed a resolution stating that eight hours would constitute a day's work from May 1,1884.

The resolution called for a general strike to achieve the demand of eight hours, since legislative methods had failed to address the demand. Workers then were forced by greedy and power hungry capitalists to work ten, twelve and fourteen hours a day under conditions so terrible that most workers succumbed on duty due to ill health and other physiological and psychological ailments.

By April 1886 about 280 000 workers were involved in the May Day movement which demanded an eight hour work day.
Their slogans read as follows: "The only way to get an 8 hour day is by organising."

If you want an 8 hour day, we must make it ourselves!" and another: "We require 8 hours for work, 8 hours for repose, and 8 hours to do what we want and for our own instruction!" The main machinery of the movement was based in Chicago and organised mainly by the Anarchist International Working People's Association. The capitalist bourgeoisie and their cohorts, the State, were terrified by the united front that swept across the entire United States. They increased the Police and the Army in size and supplied them with new and powerful weapons.

The Chicago Commercial Club purchased a US$2000 -00 machinegun for the Illinois National Guard that was to be used against striking workers. On May 3, 1886 the City of Chicago was paralysed by the general strike; stockyards, railroads, factories and other businesses where forced to close. The police fired into a crowd of fleeing strikers at the McCormick Reaper Works Factory, killing four and wounding many workers.

The Anarchists called for a mass meeting the next day in Haymarket Square to protest the unnecessary brutality against unarmed workers. Angry workers began to call for armed retaliation. The mass meeting proceeded without any violent incident and when the last speaker was on the platform, the police numbering 180, arrived with a mandate from the State and the capitalist bourgeoisie to disperse the meeting.

As the speaker was climbing from the platform, a bomb was thrown in the midst of the police platoon, exploding, and killing one officer and wounding about seventy. The response by the police was typically that of brutality, firing randomly in the crowd of workers and injuring about 200 workers and killing many. With no clues as to the source of the bomb, the police arrested eight revolutionary leaders of the Union movement, seven of whom who had not even been present in Haymarket Square at the time of the explosion.

They where charged with amongst others; conspiracy to murder in connection with the Haymarket Bomb blast, incitement and public disorder. They were all found guilty as charged despite the lack of evidence connecting them to the bomb. Only one was present at the meeting, and he was on the speaker's platform.

They were all sentenced to death.

Albert Parsons, August Spies, Adolph Fischer and George Engel were hanged on November 11 1887. Louis Lingg committed suicide in prison, and the remaining three were pardoned in 1893. These comrades where arrested, tried and sentenced to death because of their political beliefs and because they fought for the rights of the worker. News of the trial electrified labour movements in the US and Europe.

Protests against the trial were held around the world.

The Socialist International declared May 1 as a day of demonstrations and since 1890 these have been held annually by labour movements and workers forcing official recognition of May Day as a paid public holiday.

In its attempt to destroy the significance of May Day, the United States government declared the May 1 'Loyalty Day'.

Impacting human resources positively!

Does your company have what it takes to impact employees positively?

While reading an interview of a CxO of an organization stating 'companies must impact employees positively', I had mixed reactions from my friends who tried to interpret the statement. Such statements mean different things to different people depending on their roles. Many want to primarily examine it by linking it with their monetary health. After all, it's all about money, isn't it? For all such individuals who want to look at it in that light only, there's nothing but disappointment.

Let's try and understand this from the perspective of a business leader: We live in a capitalist world, where the most important objective for any business and the business leaders is to create wealth for their shareholders (in an extended way, create value (may not be wealth) for stakeholders). With such objectives, anything that doesn't make a business sense can't, and will not find place in any corporate business organization. For example, let's get back to the statement 'impacting people positively'. What impact on employees would make business sense to a CxO? To paraphrase it, what impact by an organization on its employees would generate more wealth for the shareholders?

The following are 4 primary areas which I can think can impact employees and directly contribute towards creation of wealth:

• Talent Development: Up-skilling through Training & Development interventions: Talent management finds its place on the top 3 agendas in any mature organization today. In simple terms it means ensuring that the right person with the exact skill-set requirement is available at the right place and at the right time. With various pressures of attrition, skill availability, pricing of talent etc., training and development of internal resources through various methodologies makes more business sense to any CxO.
• Conducive Work Environment & Relations for performance: Ensuring required resources are available to employees is the first step to create conducive work environment in any organization. These resources may be hardware - physical resources, as well as software which includes policies, procedures, practices, communication channels among others. Another important aspect which has taken more significance is Employee relations – both horizontal (peers) and vertical (subordinate-supervisor) relations, and practices around the same.
• Compensation: Fair & Equitable Pay: When it comes to compensation – the definition of fairness and equity has no uniformity between two individuals, more so with employers and employee. This conflict has always been, is, and shall always be. Everybody wants a greater share, not a fair one. Notwithstanding the fact that ‘exceptions are always there’, I support the first classical / rational school of thought with one of its basic assumptions: “Every human being works for monetary benefits.” Money makes the world go round, isn’t it? For organizations it means giving a pay that’s benchmarked against the market. Not necessarily the best.
• Employee Satisfaction: Guess it won’t be a surprise to know this area is witnessing a loss of interest from employers. In fact, this focus on ‘employee satisfaction’ has evolved with the passing of time and various landmark studies of human behavior and other politico-economic movements. The focus has now shifted to what is called ‘employee engagement’.

So, we’re talking of impacting employees positively and what do business leaders mean when they say that? But, the questions thrown up by any employee to that is WIIFM (What’s in it for me)? Being a HR professional and interacting with employees – frustrated, separating, engaged, disengaged and all other types, this question is quite frequently thrown at me. But yes, if employees use their monetary health alone as a yardstick to measure organizational impact on them, it’s quite a myopic approach.

So, friend, considering all the facts above, is your company impacting its employees positively? At a macro level, you need to consider at least the above all areas. If they’re not being met, you’ve got serious issues.

Called to love, endlessly!

Do read my post written for the weekly meditation in the Butler Methodist Church blog here.

The last two weeks have been intense on me on the subject of demonstrating Love and Relationships. Perhaps my previous posts also indicate on that. Most importantly, I had a practical talk to take on Relationships in God's plan with the 'South-West Delhi EU students'. After I'd finished that and joined the EGF weekly meeting, we had Bro. Richard Masih again sharing about 'How we ought to Love', and be called 'the greatest lovers'. Well, that's the basis of all Christian living too. Love! And, so when it had come to write a weekly meditation for the Church, it had to Love! To love, endlessly, just as Jesus Christ does.

How can I be called a Christian?

If I search for failures in others
Their faults, the slip of their tongues
Their inconsequential daily errors

If I highlight their weaknesses
Their mistakes, their imperfections
Their cultural poverty

If I gossip about others
Treat them as outside ‘my group’
Ruin their confidence
Make them feel alienated

If I think highly of myself
My achievements, my way of life
My march towards success

How can I be called a Christian?

S.W. Chandrashekhar
Published inYouth Touch, May-June ‘97, a bi-monthly publication of India Youth for Christ

Hard to say I'm sorry...

We all screw up our relationships with friends and family, even though in some cases we ourselves are not the ones to have started it. We make it worse by reacting or sometimes even overreacting to it, and bingo - an endless argument of accusations ensues - forgotten events are brought to life, past hurts are all dug up. Not only that, discussions begin (call it gossip, if you agree) with others trying to gather opinions, satisfying ones own curiosity and the need to reaffirm that 'I'm right'. Blood boils under the skin, hate slips out of control attempting to find any new way of manifesting itself and give back the other person what s/he deserves...

In all the process, many at time, the prime issue loses focus, and our thoughts become so extreme that words and actions start targeting the person and not the issue. That certainly will not only ensure that the issue is not sorted but also the relationship is destroyed. At times the hurt a closed one causes may be so great that you just cannot think of anything else at all. After some reflection and personal experiences, I believe one should hold themselves back from reacting to it immediately. If required sleep over it even for days till one's ready to handle the situation with a cool avoiding any bitter confrontation.

However, it all depends on how much value you attribute to the person and a relationship, and whether or not you want to save that relationship. Similarly, there may be many other variables attached which need to be considered. At the end, remember, everything is personal! If you will, you will!

In all of this, "It takes less time to do a thing RIGHT than it does to explain why you did it WRONG!" Take the first step, it's hard to say sorry, but do it. I've done it, so, I'm sharing it. It's much better, try it. Mend your relationships!

Learn from wherever, if you don't apply, it's a waste!

We get to hear a lot about learning these days, learn from this, learn from that.. "Look at their child, or your friend," some parents say "you must learn from them." That's one of the common things to hear during student days and even till much later I guess. At work, there's trainings, experiential learning etc., etc., These days, many trainers even talk about learning from movies..
Then we have lot of quotes people keep flashing in email signatures, status messages, everywhere around..

What matters in all learning is, if that's not seen in action or application, all that learning is a waste! So, if you're one of those millions who talks of learning from them, that, this and how! Take time to apply it. Demonstrate the learning in action.

Everyone wants recession cover..

Given the times of lull in world business and the impact on top-line and bottom-line of organizations, companies have become extra-careful, even the overtly conservative ones (including Lalas) have gone ahead taking measures from announcing job cuts, pay cuts, umpteen internal cost cutting measures, right-sizing etcetera..

But, as they say, in business the rear-view mirror is clearer than the windshield. Most companies looking at the past year performance have announced no salary hikes for the coming financial year. On top of it, there's no significant inflation in India which demands a correction in salaries. That quite justifies action on any company's part. It's about time in a day or two that Indian corporate would start announcing posting to the public their financial statements, and it would be no wonder if most of them had shown significant achievement, if not achieving their set targets for the financial year 2008-09.

Organizations are certain they want to grow, and the results would show that they have grown and the future, though not as certain, fairly indicates that growth is assured. I believe companies should make their employees (they're pampered as talent assets) a part of their growth by showing some sign of sharing through increments if not bonuses (even as some companies have). How else would a company more emphatically reinforce their belief in their workforce? How else does a company assure that they are interested in the employees growth and not only the financial growth of the organization? How else can a company make sure the partners are actively involved in mutual growth without giving them a taste of the growth? There's no promises made for future even if companies do not want to announce salary hikes currently. Would that not be a question of will and just running for cover of recession?

I would like to do a little bit of analysis on growth of organizations, at least 5-10 big ones and see the impact.. but, let's wait till the announcements..

Politically correct or not..

There's a dangerous trend these days - 'of being politically correct'. I realize that as I'm often accused of not being politically correct. While I always looked at as being frank, sometimes rather 'brutally honest', whether invited or not, but always with good intentions only, allegedly not being politically correct has affected me a great deal, and still continues to. What I often find a challenge is - Why should one be politically correct with persons close to them, like friends for example?

Why should one beat a little around the bush, disguise statements a little there and a little here, sugarcoat and speak with a friend, when they can go and almost bluntly blurt out about what's wrong - it's a close friend after all! What's in it to be politically correct?

The last two weeks have been quite trying and taught me a great deal about conducting my communication and weighing my words before uttering, sadly even with the closest of friends (I thought). To my understanding, unfortunately it was less due to the words communicated and more about my estimate about the receptiveness or maturity-to-understand of the person at the receiving end that has caused few issues. Well, who's to blame? Guess it's still me.

Politically correct answers or statements are strategies, or at least ideally are to be used strategically to minimize any offense while conveying the core message. Well, there's an assumption to it, that the recipient is mature enough or has an understanding adequate to cut through the diplomacy or political nature of the statement made and receive the core message. And, like it's required for a complete / effective communication there's gotta be a feedback either in words or in deed.

I've taken few learnings from recent past to further refine my communication.

1. To put into use something I've always known, and express it still better in words - that you're bothered/ attacking the issue and not the person.
2. Refrain from making personal remarks
3. Never make judgments about people's maturity to understand based on personal experiences - whether friends, even close or even people related to you.
4. Talk to people as if you were talking to a kid from second grade unless you're very sure, still refer point 3.
5. To understand when is the time to be silent; when is the time to speak, and be as slow to speak.
   
6. To avoid speaking to fools - you''ll either be counted one among them; worse, they don't see any understanding in your words, and they'll hate you for it. Even worse, you engage in words with them and you will become one among them.
   

Even after all this, I still believe that when speaking to at least the close friends, aides, acquaintances we ought to keep our speech plain, to the point and edifying each other to the extent possible. But, politics has also touched individual lives so deeply and to such great extent, that a politically incorrect statement can buy you a load of trouble. I'm yet to see if they'll lead me to making always a politically correct speech or not.

Why is Good Friday good?

The fact that Good Friday is good because...

Down the Via Dolorosa in Jerusalem that day,
The Roman soldiers tried to clear the narrow street,
But the crowd pressed in to see
The man condemned to die on Calvary (place where Jesus died)
He was bleeding from a beating -
there were stripes upon His back
And He wore a crown of thorns upon His head
and He bore with every step
The scorn of those who cried out for His death
Like a lamb came the Messiah Christ the King
But He chose to walk that road out of His love for you and me
Down the Via Dolorosa (a narrow street Christ walked on way to
calvary) all the way to Calvary

The blood that would cleanse the souls of all men
Made its way through the heart of Jerusalem
Down the Via Dolorosa called the way of suffering
Like a lamb came the Messiah Christ the King
But He chose to walk that road out of His love for you
and me. Down the Via Dolorosa all the way to Calvary.

The miracle in the incident of Jesus Christ's death is that He brought salvation and reconciliation by his death for all the generations that were in eternity past, that are in eternity present and that which will yet come to be in future eternity! But it's not a sad day, for Jesus Christ rose up from the dead on the third day (when Easter is celebrated) and gave us victory over the bond of evil.

Salvation is at hand for anyone and everyone by God's abundant grace. All one needs to do is to ask for it in the name of Jesus Christ. Hope each of you experience 'His Love & Saving Grace'. Wish you a Good Friday!