The Art of Empowerment and Delegation

Hi folks, I was busy travelling and hence could not post anything new for a few weeks. I thought of this topic, because it is the most important, most talked about, but at the same time very difficult to practice in real life …… and many, do not know, or want to know, how to attain mastery over these powerful tools.

I call it an art, but many successful persons, in different walks of life have made it into a science, with lot of pages having been written on this.  However, I firmly believe that practitioners of this art are born with, it or have imbibed it in early part of their conditioning. Here I must quickly add that conditioning can be changed as I have mentioned in my previous posts. Nevertheless, like an art, it needs to be learnt, understood, practiced, fine-tuned, and taught, in a never ending continuous  journey to take it to heights that man really can ……

Now, let us understand why it is so difficult …. Man is a social animal, filled with, ego, pride,  jealousy, uncertainty, an anxiety to succeed - no matter what, and last but not the least having multifarious ambitions and needs, etc., etc., etc. So, if one needs to be successful, the normal thought process is to be a perfectionist, to be the “go to person”, to be revered and worshipped, to be talked about, ….. in short “to be a hero”. It is this ‘persona thing’ that overrules all our rational behaviour towards Empowerment and Delegation. 

We are deluged with thoughts of:

What if it goes wrong?

No one else can do this better than me.

Can it be finished in time & without mistakes?

Will that person get all the kudos, if successful?

Will I become obsolescent?

Why should I not keep checking and reminding very often?

Why shouldn’t I involve in the activity to make it more perfect? 

Why should it be done in any way other than mine?

And many many more …. !!!

A successful practitioner knows fully well that all these are but self-doubts. In the long run, if done well, it (Empowerment and Delegation) adds to your portfolio, reduces your work-load, helps have a great team, makes the team think very highly of you, and very importantly, it gives the twin satisfaction of an upwardly mobile career and a happy personal life too !!!

If these were really true, why is it that there are a handful of practitioners of this art?

Reflect on this. Add your thoughts by subscribing and leaving comments, We shall continue in my next post, which should be very soon …

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The Total person concept

In this post, we are going to discuss the concept of success and how to achieve it. Normally our focus is on results, and all activities are then decided based on what results we expect. However, in reality all the decisions that we make in our day to day functioning emerge out of certain principles and values that have made us the people that we are.

Having said that, when anyone of us talks about …….. vision, mission or purpose, we often times look at it from an organisational perspective. If I were now to pose a question to you ………… Do you remember the vision and mission of your organisation, I’m extremely confident that your response would be positive. However,  if I were to ask whether you are explicitly aware of the purpose of your life and have developed a vision and mission statement, what would your reply be? It would all in probability be negative!!! Majority of us would not have done the exercise.

Actually speaking even if we haven’t consciously written out and arrived at a vision and mission statement for our life, all activities that we are doing, all decisions that we are taking, are sub consciously decided based on them. However, in times of crises and emergencies we may lose focus if we have not consciously written them down and reviewed them from time to time. I’m sure all of you would be able to recollect at least one instance  where you might have gone on (on hind-sight) and regretted one of your decisions.

So having said that, how does it work? We need to have principles and values imbibed in our lives in order to follow the vision, purpose and mission. This in turn would let us identify and manage our long range goals which comes along with short range goals. Since what gets managed gets measured, these goals get evaluated with the help of daily, weekly or monthly activities thereby helping us to achieve the desired results.  The goals are to be set in all areas of life –called …. “The balanced Wheel of Life” with YOU in the middle of it all.

Change is a long and often tedious process that involves planning, training, goal setting and practical application. It is not easy to master this alone, all by ourself, left completely to our own wits.

Each individual is a complex, unique individual with many roles to fill in life. The change process has to empower people to balance all these different areas  ( Financial & Career; Mental & Educational; Physical & Health; Social & Cultural; Spirutual & Ethical and last but not the least Family & Home) by helping them to do self evaluations and set personal values, priorities and goals. It is a proven fact that if each area of life is receiving the proper attention, people become more satisfied and productive. When people are productive the Organisation is productive. Increased Employee Engagement always leads to increased Customer Engagement. Customers can see, feel and perceive the change that has happened !!!

Follow this and you will be very successful in life.

More in the next post.

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LMI's methodology and unique delivery method of Leadership Development

  

At LMI, We believe that people deliver the kind of results that they do due to a conditioning that has happened over a period of time starting from childhood through school, college, and work life ....... all the conditioning that has happened over this time period.  If we now want them to focus on certain desired results for the organization, this conditioning will need to change so that they think differently.

This change cannot happen overnight. Hence, as I have said before, seminars and workshops only create an awareness, impart knowledge, but it all gets forgotten over a period of time, if it is not implemented again and again in their daily, weekly chores that form part of their working and personal lives.  They so easily slip into their comfort zones and old behavioral styles.

That is where LMI’s Program facilitation plays a key role.  LMI Programs and methodology focus on sustained changes in behavior through spaced repetition. LMI Facilitators take the participants through weekly interventions, which involves  half a day sessions every week spread over a period of 9-16 weeks depending on the program being done.

LMI facilitators discuss concepts during the session with the participants, discuss ways of applying the learnings into their work profile, and reap the benefits almost instantaneously. Participants are given a week to apply the learnings to their daily activities and jobs. When they do this on a repeated basis, accompanied by the tools provided by LMI, they start internalizing the concepts.

In addition LMI Programs also use the multi-sensory sytem where the participants are exposed to the concepts in different. Ways …. through listening, reading, discussing,  writing, highlighting key learnings and applying. This also ensures internalization of the learnings.

Last but not the least, LMI Programs focus on measurable results and hence the process is kick-started with a goal setting exercise, and the goals are driven through the duration of program, so that the organization can measure the impact of the transformational change and calculate the ROI.

As a part of the facilitation, LMI Programs, also utilize other tools like …..

Visualization, Affirmation, Interactive Facilitation & Continuous Learning.

That’s why, while most Programs stop at imparting KNOWLEDGE,

LMI Programs concentrate on the RETENTION & APPLICATION part.

And obviously RESULTS would naturally follow.

More on this in the next  post ……

Leadership Development - The LMI Way .......

In today's changing world, Organizations are increasingly being differentiated by the people they employ and retain. In the last century, the ability to exploit Capital and Technology played a major part in shaping the success of Organizations. In this fast paced and challenging environment, successful Organizations are differentiated by the quality and mettle of their human resources.

Now, let's look at the recruitment scenario ....... Less than 20% of new hires are a good fit to the Organization and the role they are chosen to play !!! The rest need to be trained into their jobs. In most Organizations, and for many employees, formal education ended the day they enter. However, in this competitive and demanding environment, employees are increasingly required to update their skills - technical, soft skills and ability to manage people - Clients, vendors, public, Governmental and Statutory bodies, internal customers, Superiors, peers, subordinates and so on ....

In a world of constant change, it’s imperative that a a manager or a leader has the requisite tools and skills necessary to help their employees change behavior as needed by our Organizations to produce the results expected of them. In fact, change management is a critical skill for all managers and leaders in this century. The question to answer therefore is ..... “How does a leader(s) of men change or influence their team(s) behavior?”   ......

There are different kinds of trainings and learnings on offer these days, and many Organizations today are trying to keep their key employees abreast with what's happening around them. Nevertheless, many are on the wrong path and on countless occasions, the man-hours and money spent do not have a direct correlation on the post- program scenario that the participant gets back into. The learnings are seldom put to use on-the-job, the very reason the same was done in the first place !!!

As per the American Society for Training and Development, there are four levels of Training :

Level 1 -   Reactionary - or - 9 to 5 seminar type where the learning lasts as long as the session does.  Participants collect a lot of paper that is distributed, with a definite resolve to go through the excellent ideas given therein. They bring all that back  to their work places - push it in our filing cabinets - and probably never open them again till we want to dump more such stuff.

Level 2 -  Traditional - this is the formal education that stands us in good stead even today - in terms of subject matter learnt at schools and colleges. Our formal education as it were. We still retain only that much of what we learnt and continued to use. The rest is forgotten.

Level 3 -   Skills - much of this is retained by us due to practice like skills with typing, shorthand, computer applications etc. This aids us in our regular work abilities but may be lost as we move up or away from the regular usage of these skills.  These skills lack retention powers. Proven results are only through continuous application.

Level 4 -   Transformational training - This is a researched and proven method. This form of training is result oriented - it starts with the training and application of that learning - getting results - exposure to periodic training under constant guidance which culminates in retentive learning.

At LMI or Leadership Management International, we specialize in this kind of training. 

More on this topic, in future posts ....