Leadership | Bhavin Gandhi's Blog

Survival guide for first time Managers – power of tools

In my last blog, I have given you some general ideas on how to introduce yourself to your team during your first meeting, and how to use pictorial presentation in knowing your people better. In this blog, I will talk about few basic tools that you should acquire during your first few week as a Manager to make your task easier.

Get business cards: This is one of the important thing to do before you meet with anyone. In your first few weeks as a Manager, you will meet various people with whom you might be working in the future. Thus, it is very crucial for you to provide them with your contact information. If your business cards are not ready by the time you meet them, then take their e-mail ids instead. In this way, you can provide them with your contact information using an outlook contact card for temporary purposes. And provide them with actual business cards, once they become available.

Get equipped: First thing that you should do on your first day is to introduce yourself to the administrative assistant. Make sure to ask him/her about what equipments you might need for your job. For example: it might be crucial for your job to be accessible 24×7. In that case, you need to make sure that you order your Smart Phone or Blackberry. In the meanwhile, make sure to provide your personal cell phone number to your manager, so that he can reach you in case of emergency.

Get your notebook: During your first few weeks, you will get more information than you consume. You will get contact information of the people that you will be working with, you will get list of projects that your team is supposed to work on, and their current status. Thus, it would be a nice idea to make a note of all these things. I personally prefer a note taking software like OneNote, but if you don’t have access to a laptop then a normal notebook should work too.

I hope these tips will prove to be helpful in your first couple of weeks as a Manager. If you are aware of any other tools that might prove helpful for a newly hired manager, then please feel free to comment here. I am always looking for people’s feedback to improve my knowledge. Thanks. – Bhavin Gandhi

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Posted by Bhavin Gandhi on November 8, 2011 in 21st Century, Leadership, Management

Tags: 21st century, Business Cards, Change Management, First time manager, Leaders of Tomorrow, Leadership, Manage Change, Management, Manager, Manager Training, Manager's Guide, Manager's Note

Survival guide for first time Managers – power of presentations

01 Nov

In my last blog, I have given you some general idea about how meeting with your employees and your Manager on one-on-one basis will help you to understand the priorities of that team, and building a trust relationship between you and them. In this blog, I will talk about few presentations that might help you during your first few days as a Manager.

Presentation about yourself: I would recommend every manager to prepare a small presentation about themselves before they meet their team for the first time. The presentation should contain few basic information such as – basics about yourself, your management style, and your background. Keep this presentation pictorial only, i.e. presentation with only pictures, so that you can speak to your presentation instead of involving people in reading your presentation. This presentation will serve dual purpose, it will give you the opportunity to connect with your people personally and set up your priorities straight.

Presentation about your people: After you have presented your presentation during your first meeting with your team, you should arrange a team meeting with your employees, where they are supposed to do the same. Tell your employees to create a presentation about themselves with few pictures, where they can express their background, education, interests, family, etc. These presentations will give you the opportunity to know something about your employees that you might not have known otherwise. Also, this presentations might help you to find their interests and motivation criterias.

I hope these tips will prove to be helpful in your first couple of weeks as a Manager. If you know any other ways to build know your employees and introduce yourself to your new team, then please feel free to comment here. I am always looking for people’s feedback to improve my knowledge. Thanks. – Bhavin Gandhi

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Posted by Bhavin Gandhi on November 1, 2011 in 21st Century, Leadership, Management

Tags: 21st century, First time manager, Leaders of Tomorrow, Leadership, Manage Change, Management, Manager, Manager Training, Manager's Guide, Presentation

Survival guide for first time Managers – power of One-on-One meetings

23 Oct

Recently, one of my friend got promoted to a management position for the first time. And when I talked to him over the weekend, he asked my advice on providing him a game plan. Thus, I came up with the idea of this blog series, where I will provide few practical tips for first time managers. In this particular blog post, I will provide you with few tips through which you can clarify success criteria for your new manager’s position.

One-on-one with your Manager: I have seen various managers coming to their new position and hit the ground running. They meet their internal/external stakeholders and team members, but they forget to meet with their Manager in the process. One should always remember that your Manager is the one, who will judge your performance at the end of the fiscal year and he might have a better idea about the business than your other stake holders. Thus, I would recommend you to meet with your Manager one-on-one every week, until you get up to speed with what are his priorities and why did he hire you for this position. This meeting will also give you the opportunity to show your work to him during the first 90 days, so that you can get his trust.

One-on-one with your Employees: Another common mistake made by the first time manager is – they concentrate too much on team development but not on personal development aspect of the team. I have seen many managers holding a team building exercise in the first two week’s of their employment, but they forget to connect with each employees on one-on-one basis. No matter how big is your team, it would be best if you can get some time to meet with your team on one-on-one basis (at least for first few weeks). This will not only provide you the information about existing processes, priorities and projects; but also help you in knowing your people and building a trust relationship between you and them. Thus, make sure to meet with each individual in your team on one-on-one basis for at least first one month.

I hope these tips will prove to be helpful in your first couple of weeks as a Manager. If you know any other ways to build a trust relationship with your employees and your Manager within first few weeks, then please feel free to comment here. I am always looking for people’s feedback to improve my knowledge. Thanks. – Bhavin Gandhi

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Posted by Bhavin Gandhi on October 23, 2011 in 21st Century, Leadership, Management

Tags: 21st century, Change Management, First time manager, Leaders of Tomorrow, Leadership, Management, Manager, Manager's Guide, one-on-one meeting, Tips

Become better at delegating (Part 1) – How to improve trust relationship with your employees?

28 Sep

I used to be a perfectionist. I always used to think that….. if I do certain things by myself, then it would be much better than others. As I matured in my career and took on more responsibilities, it was becoming difficult. There was one time, when I found myself working over 12 hours a day, and still not be able to finish all the work I had. At that time, I was managing a team of 4-6 people, and still I was unable to delegate my work effectively. It was a complete mess and I thought to myself…….I need some help. Thus, I took few leadership classes and attended few seminars, and implemented few strategies to make my life easier. It had been few years now, and I am again on top of my game. Hence, I would like to share my experience with you through these series of blog posts. I hope it helps you to become better at delegation.

Start trusting your employees…….. I know it sounds silly when I say that. But this is the key part in delegating tasks/work. If you are a ‘Type A’ personality like me, then you would rather do everything by yourself. And by doing so, you are not only overworking yourself but you are not allowing your employee’s to grow. You can implement following strategies to establish that trust relationship between you and your employees, before you can actually start delegating major tasks to them.

One-on-one lunch: Take them out for lunch and talk about their personal lives, their interests and personal establishments. If you take interest in their lives, they would definitely return the favor by helping you out in your work problems.
Meet for Golf: Try to find few hobbies which are common between you and your employees. It will help you to socialize with your employees more often, and it will put your employees in a state where they will feel comfortable in coming to you if there is any problem.
Provide training: If you don’t trust your employee’s technical abilities to do something, then provide them the needed training. But your task doesn’t end there. In order for you to be comfortable with their technical capabilities, you should develop a system where you can review their work/training on a bi-weekly or monthly basis. This mechanism will give you confidence on your employee’s technical capabilities, so that you can start delegating few challenging tasks to them.
Morning rounds: I don’t want you to micro manage your employees, but I want you to go to them every morning and ask…how they are doing. This will serve two purposes. It will convey a message to them that you are there, if they need you. And second……it will give you more face time with them, which will help you strengthen your working relationship.

I hope these tips will prove to be helpful in trusting your employees and becoming better at delegating tasks. If you know any other ways to become better at delegation, then please feel free to comment here. I am always looking for people’s feedback to improve my knowledge. Thanks. – Bhavin Gandhi

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Posted by Bhavin Gandhi on September 28, 2011 in 21st Century, Leadership, Management

Tags: 21st century, Building Trust, Delegating, Delegation, Leadership, Manage Change, Management, Manager, Project Management, Self awareness

Become a better leader by understanding human psychology

07 Sep

As a human being, we are not rational creatures. We assume that beautiful people are smarter and kinder than other people, just based on their looks. Thus, if we can understand these irrational biases then we can sometimes take advantage of these influences in order to improve our leadership style. With my experience, I have created few golden rules, which will help you to take advantage of these biases to become a better leader.

Make friends at work: I have seen many people, who believe that making friends at work is not a good idea. But I think, they are missing out on a big picture. Do you really want to work 40 hours/week at a place where you can’t even have a normal conversation with your coworkers? Making friends at work will make your work life enjoyable. Also, research shows that we are more likely to say yes to people we know and like. Thus, if you can get your coworkers to like you then they are more likely to follow your lead and direction.

Convince others with social examples: Generally, people want to feel that their thoughts and actions are compatible with others and are compliant to social norms. Thus, they normally look for social proof about any concept or a project. As a leader, you can take advantage of this bias by pointing out examples of successful projects that are similar to the project/proposal that you are proposing. Once you get few people leaning towards your direction, it’s difficult for other people to oppose that direction because of the power of social proof.

Ask for help instead of money: Normally, people are conditioned to reciprocate gifts, favors, and considerations. If they don’t reciprocate, they risk being disliked by others, so reciprocation is related to social proof. It also works other way around. If you ask someone for a favor, and if they grant it, they will feel kindlier toward you and will be more likely to say yes to you in the future. Thus, always present your ideas as – ‘idea under construction’ in front of your superiors or stakeholders, and then ask them for help to make it a solid idea. I bet you that people will see the same idea differently, if you went to them asking ‘help’ instead of ‘funding’.

I hope these tips will prove to be helpful in making the best use of human psychology to become a better leader. If you know any other ways to take advantage of human psychology to become a vibrant leader then please feel free to share it with me. I am always looking for people’s feedback to improve my knowledge. Thanks. – Bhavin Gandhi

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Posted by Bhavin Gandhi on September 7, 2011 in 21st Century, Leadership, Management

Tags: 21st century, Human Psychology, Leaders of Tomorrow, Leadership, Management

Why you should not support Anna Hazare’s movement against corruption?

22 Aug

From past few days, I am closely following Anna Hazare’s movement against corruption. And if you are connected to as many Indian friends as I am, then you don’t have any other option. Almost ‘7 out of 10’ Indian friends of mine will update their Facebook status on daily basis in support of this movement. They will write various status messages either in support of Anna or against Congress.

While I don’t have any problem with them supporting Anna, I want them to do it for the right reasons. In order to find out what Anna stands for, I did a little experiment. I emailed few of my friends on Facebook, who stands for Anna, to find out what exactly does ‘Lokpal Bill’ mean? What exactly does Anna stand for? And results were shocking. Almost 60% of my friends didn’t have any answers to my questions. But almost all of them had a perception that he stands against corruption, and if he becomes successful in his journey then we will have a new India, the Nation without corruption.

But then I got thinking……. aren’t we all responsible for the existing corruption in India? I agree that corruption must stop, but aren’t we all part of it? Being in India, we all must have encountered a situation where we must have supported corruption in one way or another. But once the corruption reaches out of our limits, we start blaming the system. Is that fair? For example: most of you won’t hesitate to bribe a policeman with Rs. 200-300 for any traffic violation because you want to save yourself out of the fine. But, when it comes to giving Rs. 15 lakh to a medical college for a medical seat, then you start blaming the corrupt system, because it is out of your reach.

We are all humans, and we have a tendency to become a part of something. And I don’t have any problem with that mentality. But if you are becoming a part of something, then please make sure to get your facts straight. Following someone without reasoning is one kind of slavery. So, don’t be a slave. Ask questions. Find out more information about what Anna Hazare stands for. And if you agree with his methodology of solving corruption in India, then go ahead and support him. But please stop following someone blindly.

Please understand that my intention is not to hurt someone’s feelings. But I want to make sure that if you are fighting for a revolution then make sure that you have the right reasons for it. Thanks – Bhavin Gandhi

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Posted by Bhavin Gandhi on August 22, 2011 in 21st Century, Leadership

Tags: 21st century, Anna Hazare, Anti-corruption, Congress, Corruption, India, Indian Government, Leadership, Lokpal Bill, Politicians, Public information, Revolution, Self awareness

Make your one-on-one with your Manager work for you

14 Aug

Different companies have different philosophies of Management. No matter which philosophy is followed by your company, your one-on-one meeting/interaction with your Manager will always remain crucial. Like any other meeting, if you are not well prepared for one-on-one interaction with your Manager, then you won’t get much value out of it. Over several years, I was able to make a comprehensive list of things that you must discuss with your Manager in your next one-on-one meeting.

Current work progress and areas of improvement: Sometimes due to a large group of people reporting to one manager, he/she can’t provide attention to everyone. Thus, take this opportunity to inform your manager about your current work progress. Make sure to communicate current status of your project and any issues that you might be facing. And yeah! Don’t forget to publicize your achievements. We are all humans, and we tend to forget things over time. So, make sure to remind your manager about your value in the company.

Talk about your future goals: My primary focus of one-on-one with my employees is to have a two way communication. I want to know, what I can provide to my employees to make their life easier at work and make them more productive. Thus, I always get impressed by those employees, who acknowledge their weaknesses and have a plan to diminish them. This approach might end up helping you. For example: I used to work with a very talented person. He was a team lead, very technical savvy, but slightly shy in her personality. When he talked to his Boss regarding his weakness and proposed few personality development classes for his improvement, his manager agreed to his plan immediately and paid for his entire program. This might happen to you too. Thus, make sure to communicate your goals with your managers.

Talk about your personal life: Most of the people believe that you should not discuss your personal life with your manager. I don’t agree with that. Of course, you don’t want to bore your manager/boss with your personal life problems, but you should not be afraid of talking about your hobbies and personal life achievements. You never know, your boss might like similar things as you do. And maybe you will end up finding something common between you and your manager, which will help you in the future to establish a positive relationship with him.

Provide feedback: This is one of the best opportunity to provide feedback about your co-workers, lead or manager himself. I like to provide positive as well as negative feedback about my coworkers to my manager. If you are not comfortable with negative feedback then its ok. But you should still provide positive feedback about your coworkers. This will not only make them look good, but it will show your manager that you are a team player and you value your coworker’s opinions. And depending on your relationship with your manager, you should also provide feedback for him. This will help you build trust relationship with your manager.

I hope these tips help you in making the best use of your one-on-one meeting with your Manager. If you know any other ways to make your one-on-one meeting more interesting then feel free to share it with me. I am always looking for people’s feedback to improve my knowledge. Thanks. – Bhavin Gandhi

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Posted by Bhavin Gandhi on August 14, 2011 in 21st Century, Leadership, Management

Tags: 21st century, Employees, Goals, Leaders of Tomorrow, Leadership, Management, Manager, Meetings, one-on-one meeting, Personal Development

Conduct result-oriented meetings with your Virtual Team

27 Jul

I hate those video conferences, where people around the world meet in a virtual setting, and at the end of the meeting, the only thing that they can decide is the date for the next meeting. I am sure I am not the only one who has been through these kinds of meetings. Am I right?

In my current position, I manage a diverse team of people from 3 different locations. And I have developed few techniques to conduct effective meetings, which I would like to share with you here.

Know your audience beforehand: The first step is to clearly define the audience that will be attending this meeting. If you are conducting the meeting for the first time, and if you don’t know the background of anyone attending the meeting, then ask around. Try to contact each individual through phone or e-mail to get a better idea of their goals and expectations.

Identify the meeting need: Ideally the meeting originator need to develop an agenda. But I have seen that it doesn’t happen often. Thus, if you don’t know the agenda then your best bet is to as the meeting organizer about the problem that he/she is trying to resolve through this meeting. This will give you an opportunity to prepare yourself before the meeting. And your preparation can be helpful in prioritizing the learning objectives for the next set of meetings.

Create an action plan: Whether it’s running a government or running a company, team works better when there is a shared and visible accountability. I would always suggest you to create an action plan in the meeting, instead of creating it afterwards. By doing this, you are making sure that an action plan is in place before you leave and that action plan is visible to everyone in the team. Thus, there won’t be any situations of miscommunication of the information.

Create support materials: The next to last step of the effective meeting is to determine the materials you will need to supplement the meeting’s outcome so that the learning objectives are achieved. I would recommend following checklist for supporting materials:

Create the facilitator notes.
Create an action plan with task items, individual’s responsibilities, and deadlines.
List of people attending the meeting so that you can send these documents to them.

Continuously monitor progress: The final step is to continually monitor the progress of the meeting and the business need for the meeting. One should make changes based on the successes, or weaknesses, of the meeting. I would recommend creating a shared action plan document, which is visible to the entire team. If you have this set-up, you only need to discuss the status of each individual task during the meeting. And that’s all.

I hope these tips help you in better conducting/attending a virtual team meeting. If you know any other ways to make a virtual team meeting more interesting then feel free to share it with me. I am always looking for people’s feedback to improve my knowledge. Thanks. – Bhavin Gandhi

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Posted by Bhavin Gandhi on July 27, 2011 in 21st Century, Leadership, Management, Virtual Team

Tags: Action Plan, Leaders of Tomorrow, Leadership, Management, Meetings, Video Conferences, Virtual Team

Where will you use written communication over in-person communication?

18 Jul

I recently opened up my Google+ account like any other tech fanatic. And one of the feature that got my attention was – Google’s Hangout. I have never seen more than 4 users video chatting at the same time without a premium account (whatever service it maybe). Though this hangout feature got my attention, I don’t think that today’s generation of SMSs and Tweets will use this feature extensively. I might be wrong, people might use this technology extensively and we might find a new generation of “Hangouters”. But this is too soon to predict anything. The only thing that I can say with confidence is – why people prefer SMSs, Tweets, and e-mails instead of in-person talk, phone calls, and meetings. Following are few situations, where people would rather prefer written communication over in-person communication.

Language barrier: As a part of my job, I manage various individuals from different locations. One of the team that reports to me is located in China. While they are very intelligent and technically sound, they have one short coming of speaking English properly. They normally understand my pronunciation of English, but I mostly have a hard time in listing their English pronunciation. Even after closely listening, I miss some sentences. Thus, I prefer to talk to them through Live Messenger instead of through a video conference. This gives me the opportunity to understand them better, while this gives them the opportunity to consume the data, translate it into their native language (through Google translator), and respond me back.

Broadcasting: Written communication is also useful during information broadcasting. For example: if I am having my birthday party, I would rather post it on my Tweeter feeds, Facebook or Google+’s feeds instead of calling everyone to come. And why not? I don’t need to repeat the same message to everyone on the phone. And I can also get the count of expected attendees at my party through these event’s page.

Record keeping: With information overload in today’s world, people tend to forget things which you might have mentioned to them few weeks ago. Thus, most of people like me, tends to follow-up through e-mail. According to me, e-mail is the best way to keep records of your conversation. For example: Let’s say, I talk to “Joe” regarding some IT issue over the phone and he tells me that he will get back to me on next Monday. If I wouldn’t have followed-up with an e-mail explaining the problem, I had to explain him the problem again on Monday. If I would have e-mailed him the details then I can just forward that e-mail and ask the status of this issue. He can then look at the information in the e-mail and find the status of the issue without wasting my or his time.

Speed: Sometimes, people just don’t like to talk in-person for smaller talks. For example: Let’s say, I have just talked to my colleague to see if he is interested in coming to a BBQ at my house. And he told me that he will get back to me today, but he forgot to respond. I would rather SMS him to ask his answer instead of calling him. If I call him, I don’t have anything to say because I just talked to him not long ago. But I still want his answer. So, I will just get SMS him to find his answer. This will be much more quicker and time efficient.

People’s availability: This is a really big question in today’s world. 6/10 times, I want to talk to someone, but I can’t find their free time. Thus, I always end up writing them an e-mail or texting them on their mobile. There can be various reasons for this issue, from time zone differences to their prior commitments to work or personal events. But when I use written communication instead of oral communication, they have the time to consume the information and then respond back to me on their free time. In this way, I don’t put someone in a weird situation by calling them during their working hours.

I hope these tips might have given you some pointers about where to use written communication instead of in-person communication. If you know any other situations where written communication will be preferred over in-person communication then do let me know. I am always looking for people’s feedback to improve my knowledge. Thanks. – Bhavin Gandhi

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Posted by Bhavin Gandhi on July 18, 2011 in 21st Century, Leadership, Management

Tags: 21st century, Business Communication, Collaboration, Communication, Communication Failures, Communications, E-mail Communications, Leaders of Tomorrow, Leadership, Manage Change, Management, Written Communication

New hire’s guide to learn the culture of the company

05 Jul

My team is currently growing. We are hiring few new people at this time. And as we hire new people, I need to make sure that they get appropriate tools and training to come up to speed. Thus, I was creating an on-boarding plan for these new hires. My initial plan only contained specifics of what processes, technologies and tools that they need to learn. I didn’t have any idea about how to train them on our existing culture. And I thought of this blog. Following are few pointers, which might help you in learning the existing culture of your new company.

Policies: The organizational policies and procedures influence the projects that a company undertakes. The organizational procedures will determine how to implement new strategies and if the work environment will be formal or informal. For example: some organizations may allow employees to work anytime from 7.00am to 7.00pm, while other organizations may be very strict about their working hours. To get yourself acquainted with these policies, you should read all the possible policy documents at your disposal. HR department would be your best bet to find more information. Detailed oriented observation of your co-workers can also help you in learning unwritten policies.

Values: The values, beliefs and expectations of an organization have a major impact on the organizational culture. The organization’s strategic decision making choices, preferences, and approach will vary based on its values and beliefs. The criteria for the election of a project are determined by the organizational culture. For example: a competitive, ambitious and assertive organization will select projects with high risks, while a highly rigid and authoritarian origination might not take projects with high risks. Most of these values are derived from your company’s culture or your team’s culture. Your best bet would be observing your manager’s behavior and socialize with your colleague to get more information. Going out on lunch with your coworker can give you many valuable insights.

Management style: The management style of the organization is another factor that affects the organizational culture. Some managers follow a coaching style, while other managers follow a controlling style. After observing the management style of your organization, you can determine if your feedbacks will be valued or not? If the management is going to implement new strategies based on your feedback or not? As a new employee, I would recommend you to adapt to the management style of an organization. And once you properly understand your Manager’s management style, try to provide your feedback in the manner that he/she will understand.

I hope these tips will help you to learn the culture of your new company as soon as possible. Please feel free to comment on my blog, if you have any other suggestions regarding this subject. Thanks. – Bhavin Gandhi