February | 2012 | Bhavin Gandhi's Blog

Why can’t your business have any ethical standards?

Have you ever thought why big company’s CEO can cash in on millions of dollars in bonuses and still remain untouchable by Federal Government? Have you ever thought why media always talks about ethical issues, and nothing ever happens to those people? Recently, I was watching a documentary on how big companies are moving their IPs (intellectual properties) to Ireland, and paying only 15% taxes there instead of paying 35% tax in United States. Then I asked myself a question….. Is this legal? ……The answer came out to be…. “YES”. They are not doing anything wrong legally. So, government in United States can’t do anything about this. This raised an another question in my mind….. Is it ethical? ….. And surprisingly the answer came out to be as “YES”. And here is why……

Basics of business: Have you ever saw the definition of business? If you have then you know what I am talking about. In defining a business, ethics don’t play in to the picture at all. Sole purpose of a business is to increase the value for its stakeholders. Thus, can you blame those businesses, who are taking advantage of the lower tax policies in Ireland to increase their net income? It might be morally wrong for those businesses to show all of their profit in Ireland, while they get their 50-70% profit from United States, but you can’t do anything about that. As more and more countries loosen their tax policies to attract foreign businesses, there would always be some companies who want to move there to increase their net profit by paying lower taxes there.

Definition of ethics: In my opinion, definition of ethics is very subjective. I don’t think that you can have a clear defined ethical standards globally. Whenever you try to define ethics, it doesn’t remain ethics anymore. It becomes a law or a rule. For example: If you think that it’s not an ethical practice for people to do insider trading on the basis of the insider information, and if you want to change that then you might want to change the law which punishes those people. Unless you put that law in practice, you will always find immoral people, who will be using their insider knowledge to make huge bucks for themselves. At the end, ethics shrink down to morals and personal belief of that particular individual, who is running that business. Because there is nothing clearly defined in the books, which will prevent this person from taking unethical decisions.

Subjective nature: As I mentioned earlier, ethics basically shrinks down to morals and beliefs of the person who is handling that business. Thus, ethics tend to be very subjective in nature. And there are various other factors that affects the core definition of ethics. For example: It would be considered unethical for an employer to hire a kid, who is only 15 years old. But in some countries, some government encourages companies to hire younger people, so that they can support their family, while getting the invaluable professional training for their future. Thus, you can’t exactly define what is ethical and what is not, when your business is global and you yourself can’t define what is considered ethical.

Though I have my tight morals, beliefs, and ethical standards; I don’t think that a business, as an entity, can have any kind of ethical standards. Of course, business can have rules and policies under which it can operate, but there can’t be any ethical standards that it can abide to. I hope you liked my argument in this blog. Please feel free to discuss your view points on the same. I am always curious to hear different perspective from different people. Thanks – Bhavin Gandhi

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Posted by Bhavin Gandhi on February 27, 2012 in 21st Century, Leadership, Management

Tags: 21st century, Business Ethics, CEOs, Challenges, Cultural Change, Ethical Issues, Ethical laws, Ethical Standards, Leaders of Tomorrow, Leadership, Leadership Failures, Management, Moral Codes, Self awareness, Unethical behavior, Work culture

Manager’s Guide: How can I make it easier for a new hire to transition in my group? (Part 1)

21 Feb

I have written numerous blogs about how to familiarize yourself with your new job, but I have never focused on writing the other side of the story. In this blog series, I will provide some guidelines which can help you to conduct useful conversations with your new employees during the onboarding process. I hope that you can create a positive onboarding experience for your employees through these tips.

Talk about strategic objectives: Obviously, you need to have several conversations between you and the new employee over first 6-7 months, but make sure to make the strategic objectives as your primary conversation topic. This will not only make her understand the relationship between her tasks and the objectives of your company, but it will help you to make her understand the overall picture. You can start this discussion by talking about the company’s vision and strategy; and then you can progress towards explaining her the company’s goals, priorities and business initiatives. During this discussion, you should always ensure that you try to connect company’s goals and your team’s goals with her day-to-day activities. This practice will help you in making her an autonomous resource of your team, who can connect the dots by herself.

Talk about the culture: I have seen various managers, who fails to explain the existing culture of their company to a new hire. They think that the new hire will catch up on the company’s culture with time. While this perception has some credibility, I would advise not to do that. If you would have explained the company’s culture to the new hire during the onboarding process, then it will make her transition easier and smooth, while you can benefit from her understanding of the existing culture. You can initiate this conversation by describing her the culture of the company including company’s norms, beliefs, values, traditions, symbols, etc. For example: our working hours are 8-5pm, and all the employees are supposed to be present on the company premises between our core hours – 9am to 4pm.

I hope these tips will help you to become a better manager by providing a clear direction for your newly hired employee. In the next blog post, I will be discussing about how to familiarize your new hire with the rules of your team.

Let me know, if you have any other ideas through which you can help your employees to easily transition to your company. Thanks. – Bhavin Gandhi

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Posted by Bhavin Gandhi on February 21, 2012 in 21st Century, Leadership, Management

Tags: 21st century, Best Practices, Change Management, Clear expectations, Communication with employees, Cultural Change, Employees, First time manager, Hiring Manager, Leaders of Tomorrow, Leadership, Manage Change, Management, Manager, Manager Training, Manager's Note, New hire, Organization's Culture, Strategic Objectives, Work culture, Working hours, Written Communication

How to deal with a poor performer in your team?

13 Feb

Have you ever encountered a situation where you had to have a difficult conversation with your employees? Or have you ever put any employee on a Performance Improvement plan? It is very unfortunate that some of the Managers try to avoid those situations. Instead of having appropriate conversation with their employees, they try to avoid those situations. Well, I am not a master of these conversations by any means, but I have few tips through which you can handle this situation well.

Verbal discussion: Let say, you have a poor performer in your team. And despite of your numerous efforts to improve his performance, he didn’t improve. In this situation, I would advise you to have a personal discussion with him, if you haven’t done that already. This one-on-one discussion will give you an opportunity to explain your concern about his performance, while it will give him an opportunity to explain his side of the story. The purpose of this meeting should be to let him know about your concerns, so that he can correct those behaviors.

Document your concerns: After you had your verbal discussion, you should always make sure to document those communications via e-mails or memos. This will help you not only in any legal proceedings that might arise in the future but it will also help you to reiterate your point. Your e-mail should contain summary of your discussion reinforcing your message and the place where this discussion took place. It’s a good idea to let the employee know that they will be receiving a follow up email after the meeting. Explain that it is to ensure each party is on the same page regarding discussion points. This can circumvent the perception that you are using the email for “tracking” purposes only.

Follow-up discussion: You should never have a discussion with someone, and then not follow up with that. I would advise you to schedule a follow-up meeting regarding your verbal discussion as soon as you send the follow-up e-mail. Of course this meeting might not happen within 1-2 months, but it’s always a good practice to keep a checkpoint on these kind of discussions to make sure that you don’t forget it. And yeah! Make sure to have a specific agenda for this meeting. For example: specific projects that he might be working on, his performance improvement within last month, action plan to success, time frame for improvement, etc. Don’t forget to include all the consequences clearly and visibly in this meeting request. This will ensure that your employee is aware of all the consequences before you decide to take any action.

I hope these tips will help to become a better manager and effectively deal with your poor performers. Let me know, if you have any other ideas through which you can effectively deal with your poor performing employee. Thanks. – Bhavin Gandhi

Are you working for a bad Boss? Here are few tips to deal with the situation

08 Feb

Have you been in a situation where your Boss takes all the credit of your work and makes you responsible for his mistakes? Does your Boss never listen to you, or at least you feel he doesn’t? I am sure that 10-20% of my readers must have been through these situations at least once. Though I might not have a magical solution to correct this problem, I can recommend few steps through which you can get yourself out of these situations.

Do self-assessment first: I am a huge believer of second chances. Thus, I would recommend you to self-assess yourself before blaming your Boss. I am not saying that you are a cry baby, and you have a problem of crying no matter what your Boss does for you. Sometimes there is a perception difference between how you see things and how your Boss sees the same thing. Thus, before taking any action, you want to get rid of these variables. You can do this assessment by observing your Boss’s behavior towards other colleagues. You can also ask your colleagues about your behavior, and your Boss’s behavior towards you. This will give you some good insight on identifying the exact problem.

Move-on but document: Let’s say, you found out through your self-assessment process that your Boss is being unreasonable to you. In that case, you can still have a fresh start. It’s never too late to forgive someone. Try forgiving your Boss for his past behavior, and try to have a fresh start. But this time, take the ball in your hand. Take initiatives to objectify your goals and document your achievements. For example: If you are working on a project, and you got praised by your colleague or your customer, then keep those documents aside in one file. This kind of information, justifying your achievements, will help you when you want to confront your Boss about your progress.

Have a friend in upper management: I am not intending to bribe anyone or going out of your way to please someone. I am just saying that you should keep good relationships with your Boss’s Boss. If you don’t know how to initiate or cultivate these relationships then I have one advice for you – “Lunch”. I would recommend you to invite your Boss’s Boss for a lunch. This will give you an informal setting, where you can discuss your issues with him. Once you feel comfortable enough with this relationship, you can e-mail him about your achievements in a monthly e-mail. This practice will give you some visibility to upper management, and in case of issues with your immediate Boss, you can ask for help from Boss’s Boss.

Quit your job: After you have exhausted all of your options, and they don’t seem to be working, then you should think of getting an another job. You don’t want to be stuck in a job, where you don’t find any opportunity of growth. But don’t quit your job right away. Be patient and keep working hard, until you find a reasonably good offer. In the meanwhile, you should start collecting references and recommendation letters from your colleagues, customers, and old Bosses. Make sure to document all of your achievements and interesting projects for your job search. And yeah! Don’t do the same mistake again. Try to find a new job, where you can produce measurable results, and your performance depends on your deliverables, and not on your Boss’s perception of you.

I hope these tips will give you some idea about how to deal with a bad boss. Let me know, if you have any other ideas through which you can work at a workplace where your Manager doesn’t value you that much. Thanks. – Bhavin Gandhi

Survival guide for first time Managers – how to hire someone?

02 Feb

Recently, I have opened up a new position in my team for Internship. And when I was going through the hiring process, I realized that there are many new managers who would make hiring mistakes unknowingly. Through this blog, I want to provide some guidelines for hiring a new person in your team, so that you can avoid those common mistakes.

Ask your Manager for help: If you are a new manager, and if you haven’t hired anyone before, then you might want to start the hiring process by asking your Manager instead of going with the HR training guidelines. I am not saying that HR Training for new manager is not useful, but sometimes those kind of trainings are very general. Those training might provide you required information, but they wouldn’t tell you specifics about processes followed in your department. If you ask your manager for help then he will be able to guide you in the right direction. And by asking your manager’s help, you are making sure that he is involved in your first hiring decision.

Involve your team: I have seen many managers, who hires independently of their team member’s decision. I would definitely advice against that practice. As a manager, you should always involve your team members in your hiring decision. This will serve many purposes. For example: This will not only tell your employees that you care about their opinion but also it will internally motivate them. This hiring practice will make sure that your employees don’t have any issues later on, when the new hire comes onboard. And you will have few more people to support your hiring decision.

Create a skill-set table: If you are hiring someone for the first time, then I would recommend you to create a skill-set table. This table doesn’t need to be a fancy and descriptive table, it can be a simple Excel Sheet of all the required skills for this position. For example: C, C++, SQL, Self-starter, Critical thinker, etc. Once you have this table ready, make sure to carry this table in all of the interviews that you take. Make sure to distribute this list to all the interviewers, so that they can grade that candidate on these skills. This table will not only work for you as a record of candidate’s capabilities, but it will also give you the opportunity to compare every candidate equally.

I hope these tips will help you to hire a new person in your team without any major mistakes. Let me know, if you have any other ideas through which you can improve your hiring process for a first time manager. Thanks. – Bhavin Gandhi