Getting the best from others: Where does one start? – II (The Workforce ‘Three Quadrant Quandary’)

 
Almost a year back I had written a post on “Getting the best from your team: Where does one start? – I” where I had explored a couple of ideas that a startup had applied towards building a great motivated team.

The year 2011 has been a great one in terms of meeting different people and getting to learn a lot via interaction as well as via plain ol’ observation. Just a couple of weeks back, whilst I had the fabulous opportunity to interact with Tan Yinglan, and we all were in Bengaluru along with a colleague’s friends from the city, the banter drifted to the topic of performance appraisals at a well known global IT firm – easier said than done!

During the 5 minutes or so that the group was discussing the general concerns of people & performance in huge organizations, my mind drifted back to something I had learned during the first 6 months of my work life, and which I have now fondly named “The Workforce ‘Three Quadrant Quandary’.”
 

The Workforce ‘Three Quadrant Quandary’

 
This started out as a funny concept which I observed whilst I had just started working right out of college, but one which has started making more and more sense over the years. Whilst it is ‘relatively easier’ to gauge and manage people strengths and weaknesses when working in smaller organizations, it becomes more and more complex as the organization scales up; more so when we start thinking of organizations where we have 500-1000+ employees (we have a good number of firms flaunting these kind of numbers in their workforce).

In an organization, people can generally be classified under the following quadrants:

For ease of understanding, +1 indicates a positive display of the characteristic (Knowhow/ Showhow) whereas 0 denotes a lack of the same.

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Quad I: +1 Knowhow, +1 Showhow

These are the visible S.T.A.R.S. in your organization. They know the work, and (a) they are smart enough to let others know about their genuine efforts or (b) they are lucky enough to be recognized for their genuine efforts.

These are the ones who will keep taking your organization to the next level(s) as long as you keep providing them with right opportunities that help them grow, and which gives them a sense of achievement. Work on them, groom them for the next level (as they become intrapreneurs)… and needless to say, please make it a point to make sure you put in your efforts to retain them!

Getting the best from your team: Where does one start? – I

 
One thing that I have come to realize over time is that, the team, or as I would put it, ‘The Human Capital’, plays a major part in any Organization’s success. This holds for the Corporate Powerhouse managing its many businesses under one roof,  as much as it does for the StartUp dreaming of becoming the next Corporate Powerhouse.

This, of course, brings to mind the question: How does one make the best of what one’s team has to offer?

Those who have read Jack Welch on people management might straight away utter 3 words in reverence: ‘Reward’, ‘Recognition’ and ‘Training’.

But is that all there really is to managing people, or is there more to explore when you happen to work with teams?

I have tried applying Jack’s principles whenever working with people, and found them to be quite effective… BUT… I have also realized that, as what I had been taught in Chemistry a good 7-8 years back, exceptions to the rule exist just as well.

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Imagine this scenario, where I was working closely with a Colleague on a tight deadline:

It’s night 2:30 AM, the deliverable has to be sent in by morning; we have already exchanged quite a few drafts between us, and my colleague comes back to me and says: “Monce, I think we can improve on this just this much more”. You realize he is serious. You know that what he suggests make sense, and will add that ‘bit’ more value to the deliverable. You also realize that its one of those rare moments when you want to hug and shoot this guy at the same time!

The best part: its not just him alone; but his entire team is up and working ‘actively’ at this time of the night, and they are all in it together. Made me wonder how he manages his team and keeps them up and motivated to put in their best, all the while? This keeping in mind that it’s already Sunday morning now and we have been at work straight for the past 17 odd hours or so (excluding the days that were behind us)!

A few days later, I did get around to asking him and his partner as to how they managed their Human Capital. Theirs is a StartUp they founded in 2009.

I was of the impression that, as a StartUp, they could definitely not be paying their team salaries at par with the MNCs and bigger firms. Turns out they were doing exactly that… and then some more!