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Tag Archives: 21st Century Management

How to schedule a perfect virtual meeting?

21 Apr

VideoConferenceOther day, I was attending this virtual meeting, and within 5 minutes in the meeting, I realized that some of the key stakeholders wouldn’t be able to make this meeting due to their time zone difference. Within 10 minutes into the meeting, I also realized that other participants were not well prepared, and we might have to convene some other day to discuss these same action items.

Obviously, scheduling a perfect in-person meeting also requires some level of preparation, but to schedule a perfect virtual meeting is a challenge in itself. You don’t just need to make sure that the meeting agenda is well defined and thought out, but you also need to handle logistics challenges imposed by difference in time zones and technology limitations. Thus, in this blog, I will provide you with few tips through which you can schedule your perfect virtual meeting.

Be agenda ready: Whether your meeting is virtual or in person, you should always have a well-defined agenda for your meeting, which should be clearly stated in the meeting request itself. If, for whatever reason, you can’t explicitly mention your agenda in the meeting request, you should send out an email to all the participants with this information beforehand. This approach will not only help your participants to set some basic expectations about the output of this meeting, but it will also help you to make sure that your participants are prepared beforehand with the desired information, so that they can respond to your questions and come up to some kind of an agreement.

Keep time in mind: Whenever you are scheduling a virtual meeting, you need to always be aware of different time zones from which your attendees will attend this meeting. After all, you won’t be attending a meeting at 3am in the morning, unless it is very important, right? Same goes for your meeting attendees. They are not going to put an extra effort to attend your meeting at 3am in the morning, just because it is convenient for you. Thus, before scheduling the meeting search for your attendee’s time zones and schedule the meeting at appropriate time.

Share the pain: Sometimes, due to the vast time difference between two virtual teams, it is impossible to schedule these meetings within the regular working hours (8am to 5pm) of both the teams. And hence, it is very important to share the inconvenience across your team rather than always have the same person/team meeting before breakfast or late in the evening. If you have to schedule regular meetings across multiple time zones, then you should rotate the pain across the board by changing the team each week that has to stay late to attend the meeting.

I hope, this blog can help you in scheduling a perfect virtual meeting for your team. In my next blog, I will provide you with some more insight into how to schedule your virtual meetings better, but in the meanwhile if you have any recommendations from your side, then please feel free to share it here through your comments. Thanks – Bhavin Gandhi

 
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Posted by on April 21, 2016 in 21st Century, Leadership, Management, technology, Virtual Team

 

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How to clear your mind and think?

07 Mar

HumanPsychologyIn today’s day and age, when we are surrounded by so many things from mission critical problems to materialistic things, it is difficult to clear your mind. When your job is to put out fires everyday, it is very challenging to clear your mind. After all, how do you find time to think, when you are so occupied already? But at the same time, ignoring the need for thinking allows seemingly healthy, active businesses to fail because of the change they never saw coming, until it was too late. Thus, as a leader, we need to develop a habit of stepping away from our day-to-day activities, and clear our mind. Hence, I am writing this blog to provide you with some pointers through which you can manage to clear your mind, while managing your busy schedule at the same time.

Block your calendars: As a leader/manager, we are used to organize our day through Outlook or Gmail calendar. Then why don’t we use the same mechanism to remind ourselves about clearing our mind for a while? This is the least we can do for ourselves, right? So before another week goes by, clean your schedule for hour or so, and make sure that you keep this meeting with yourself. During these thirty minutes, think. Don’t write, read magazines, or clean your desk. Just think. It would be great if you could do it with your office door close and your computer shut down. Avoid normal distractions, which would otherwise lead you to a different path.

Change your environment: I am sometimes tired of sitting in my office, and I often look for a change to clear my mind. There is no easier way to do that than just taking a walk. A short walk of half an hour provides a great thinking environment for me, and I encourage you guys to try it as well. And yes, during your thinking time, try not to question your mind with a day-to-day problem, although this works well for that, too, but try to think about general stuff or changing environment. For example: What’s changing in my environment that I haven’t thought about? What new skills will my team need in the next year? What barriers exist to my team’s success this quarter? Etc.

Try new things: As a leader, we are often occupied with a routine, where all of our activities are predefined and we follow a same schedule. From playing golf to hanging out with our friends, we become used to a same routine. As a leader, we shouldn’t just challenge our work, but we should also challenge ourselves to get out of our comfort zone. Thus, we should try to go to a museum, an art gallery, or a library. Or just visit a mall without any intension of shopping or fly a kite. At the end of your excursion ask yourself, What did I see or experience today that taught me something about my work or my life? Don’t push for the answer, but don’t give up too quickly. There’s always something there; you just need to think till you find it.

I hope, my blog can help you not only clear your mind but develop a practice in your life to think outside the box. If you have any other recommendations, then please feel free to share it here. Thanks – Bhavin Gandhi

 
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Posted by on March 7, 2016 in 21st Century, Leadership, Management

 

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5 signs of being a bad manager

13 Mar

Bad ManagerMany managers fail to recognize their mistakes. Sometimes its not their fault at all. They just don’t see the early signs of their management failure, and hence, they can’t fix the underneath issue. After all, you can only fix something, if you know what is wrong. Thus, in order to help these managers in identifying the initial signs of failure, I am writing this blog. Through this blog, you should be able to see some initial signs of your leadership failures.

Higher turnover rate: Every organization experiences some kind of turnover in its positions, especially in the market-based economies like the Untied States. However, at least 40% of the turnover in the market place is due to the bad manager. If you are seeing more than an average turnover in your team, then its your time to analyze your leadership skills and management style. When inordinate amounts of turnover exist in your group, it may be that you might be alienating valuable staff members.

Hard time to fill positions:  When you loose people from your team, hiring from within the organization should be your first and most cost- effective option. When you are finding it more difficult to fill these positions within the organization, it may be that you might have developed a reputation as someone for whom it is difficult to work for.  Though it is not always the case, you might want to analyze the reasons behind not being able to fill these positions. It might be telling you something about your hiring practice or your reputation in the organization.

Increase in employee’s disputes: If you are a bad manager, then you must be seeing lot of disputes between you and your team. If Human Resources staff members are called upon frequently to mediate specific human relations issues, then it might be the time for you to do some self-analysis about your management style. This is a clear sign that you are not able to control your team members, and hence, you will not only loose some respect in their eyes, but you will also be seen as an ineffective manager in front of your superiors.

Performance reviews are challenged: For a good manager, a performance review is nothing but an opportunity to document something that happened during the year. Neither the employee nor you should be surprised by seeing any comments written in the review. But that doesn’t happen all the time. Few managers always have an issue during the performance review period, where their performance reviews are challenged by their employees. If you are one of those managers, where your performance assessments are often challenged by your employees, then it’s a sign that you are a bad manager.

Company’s policies are neglected: One of the signs to identify that you are a bad manager or not, is to observe your team. If you are frequently neglected in the decision making process, and if your employees are frequently neglecting the company’s policies and procedures, then it’s the time for you to analyze your management style. If you are deemed difficult to work with, then often your team members and other employees will follow the path of least resistance, and completely ignore you in the decision making process. This should be the clear indication that your management style needs some updating.

I hope, through my blog post you can get few hints about your current management style. Please share your comments here, if you agree/disagree with my point of view.

Thanks – Bhavin Gandhi

 
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Posted by on March 13, 2014 in 21st Century, Leadership, Management

 

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