General
“Business Wisdom” is a contribution by Mr. Anil Laud, former MD of Siemens. He has several years of experience in the corporate world and wanted to share his experience and learnings with Professionals. Keep visiting this area regularly for the new articles.
1. It is difficult to make difficult things simple: it’s simple though to make simple things difficult
Decide which category you belong to. The former calls for deep insight in to and understanding of the subject. Power of conceptualization and presentation are the other assets one needs to possess. It is possible to cultivate these traits; all it needs is courage to accept when you get the things wrong.
The latter is most often used as a smoke screen to prevent exposure due to lack of knowledge of the subject.
2. Selfless service
Seek no personal reward for success. Do your duty – all that you can to succeed, but seek no recognition for your contribution. This is not to be mistaken for hypocrisy. The tendency to look for a reward should be shed in spirit. Amazingly the success rate would improve tremendously. One would say then what is the ‘motivation’ to try hard? The ‘motivation’ comes out of the success you achieve – all that you ensure is that you do not look for a personal reward. The reward could be in any form – Cash or Kind. Being recognized by important people as the pivot for success is also a reward in kind.
3. Failures
Never disassociate yourself from the work team while you are an Employee and not an Auditor. Once you are a party to the collective decision; it would be your own decision there after. If there is success consequently, give due credit to whom it belongs – originator of the idea, executor, team leader. If there is failure in the end, be ready to accept your share. Particularly if you are the leader of the team – whether you drew the detail game plan or not – whether your part caused the failure or not, be ready to accept responsibility for failure.
October 2004, Berlin. Large multinational was struggling to find the rhythm to succeed in its Telecom business – it’s most traditional and most successful one for the past several decades. The Central Board representative for the said business only criticized the executive team for the poor performance during the Annual Business Conference. However the criticism didn’t go down well with any one in the audience. By January 2005 the Executive Board Member had to relinquish not only his position but had to leave the Company soon there after. Company of course continued to flounder in its Telecom business even after that and had to divest from that business a year.
4. Show me the ‘Cause’ and we will find the ‘Way’
It is necessary to define the ‘Cause’ (usually part of the mission). The Cause has to be bought by the troops. Then the ‘Way’ would be found by the troops themselves.
5. Differentiate between Efforts and Results
Lower the position the person can not be held responsible for the end-results. However in the highest position (CEO) it is the Results which count and not the Efforts
6. Targets & Incentives
These are usually set during the Planning process. Achievement of targets and claiming the incentives should appear like a game. Concerned person is not expected to take desperate measures to claim the incentive.
The targets need to be reviewed every quarter to see if there are any occurrences beyond the individual’s control, so that the Annual Targets and Incentives could be fine tuned periodically – thumb rule – higher the Target, higher the Incentive and vice versa.