Nuts & Bolts

Rocket Singh (Not the real name) has a profitable business. He hired a highly successful sales manager with a fat salary. Naturally, he wanted a big jump in sales. But in last 6 months sales has dropped. Rocket Singh worked closely with the manager and he appeared to follow his decisions! He is now seriously thinking if he had chosen the right candidate or not. Should the manager be relieved or some better alternative is available? That's when Rocket called me and I got involved.  So what went wrong? Was it a hiring mistake? I didn't feel so as I had a few interactions with the Sales Manager in the past few months and he appeared to possess the skills to lead the team effectively as well as focus on the right tasks! Rocket confided how deeply he had engaged himself with the manager, explaining all the nitty-gritty of the sales and marketing activities on a weekly basis or even more frequently at times! He had to, as he felt that the Manager being new to the organisation, ma

What does one do if one loves something or someone? One would demonstrate emotions and ensure well being of their object of love. Right? We don't expect one to act in a way that endangers the well being or existence of the loved entity or loved being. So, should the business owners behave any differently towards the organisations they create and supposedly love? Of course not. And their emotions do not betray our hypothesis! However, the policies and practices they propagate do not support the same story.   We would like to believe that the owners would work towards the well being of  their business organisations. If this is true they should work for ensuring perpetuity of their businesses. But how many businesses perpetuate through generations or centuries? Only a handful. Statistics prove that only a mere 1/3rd of businesses survive every generation. This means we will have a small percentage of businesses surviving till the third generation of owners or managers! Isn

What makes a team tick? A leader needs to appreciate and demonstrate the humane connection! Teams succeed if there's teamwork! Given that all teams have the know-how to do the job they are meant for, their success is determined by Teamwork alone. Whats's teamwork? Teamwork is about putting the interest of the team ahead of individual interests by the team members. Team members take it upon themselves to make up for any slippages or lacking by any member. They understand one another's capabilities and shortcomings and compensate in a manner to fulfill team's purpose! Teamwork is when members aren't anxious about who worked more or less or who took the lead or received appreciation. The appreciated member or the team leader on his part fosters team spirit and cohesion by sharing the credits with his team members openly and in public wherever possible.  Teams are able to handle and resolve their conflicts for the sake of their goals. Nothing matters to them m

It all started with a reference I had received from Vipul ( Name changed ), about one of his friend Ashok ( Name changed ), who wanted to meet me and discuss certain business challenges. It was a new industry for me and so I had got excited with the prospect of learning something new from the imminent consulting engagement on the horizon. On meeting Ashok, I learnt he had a small business that was growing at a quick pace for last few years after he had integrated backwards. It was a family business. The business turnover had grown from about 9 crores to about 22 Crores in around 3 to 4 years time, but had stagnated after that. He shared that he had a good bunch of people who were very sincere, loyal and carried out their jobs and all his instructions without fail. However, he also felt that the employees did not take any initiative to change things around by themselves or drive improvements in performance. They waited for Ashok's decision for all important issues, even on a

Do you have customer complaints ? Whenever I posed this question to senior leaders or business owners, a good majority of them shared that there might not be scope for complaints in their business but certain times customers might be sharing their feedback. In case further probed they tended to say that in the unlikely event of complaints, they definitely received the attention they deserved and so those complaints must have got resolved! In all these instances as above I had felt that those businesses did not have a clearly defined process for handling customer complaints. They didn't have any means of tracking customer complaints and their follow up status. Neither they had the opportunity of looking at the root causes and acting on them. They probably felt it important to cover up complaints for managing their reputation or image or customer perception. They believed acknowledging complaints and transparently addressing them could lead to loss of face, loss of customers, and

Small businesses generally do not maintain any dedicated HR person or team for structured HR practices. HR practices in most small businesses center around meeting payroll and statutory compliance requirements. As these tasks are repetitive and calculation oriented, the accounts teams are commonly to handle these tasks. So the need for a separate HR function or team is  not easily recognized in such organisations. Is this arrangement sufficient for continuing business success? No! A business organisation is made of people. For growing a business and its operations, additional manpower become necessary sooner or later. There could be employee turnover too. These two basic situations can give rise to the following work Recruitment - Advertising for vacancies or selecting and engaging placement agencies, defining and explaining job specifications, screening CVs, organising interviews, selecting and finalising right candidate(s), finalising pay, making offers, preparing offers and