Attitudes and its Impact on work

Visual Courtesy http://www.mondaymusings.org

The past couple of months has been tumultuous!

Starting from sharing of best practices in our business planning that leads to highly focused, segmented and revenue oriented marketing activities, detailing out cooperative collaborations and being the point man for a specific industry project;  its’ been a crazy yet, in its own way, a very satisfying period at the day job. As I sit back and take stock, specifically to get the project process in place, issues revolving primarily around “attitudes” come to mind. I felt, that it would be a good blog post.

So, readers, here’s my personal take on “attitudes and its impact on work”.

In my day job I wear three hats:

1. Business Planner
2. Marketing Head
3. Point Man

Those of you involved in organisational planning, HR, and performance measurement, would immediately say—“What the…!” Yes, its 3 specific functions, that for the past one year I’ve delivered on. And, I’ve loved every minute of it!  The thrill is in the fun of doing it and doing all three well, within the deadlines.  Perhaps i love the stress! Anyways, lest I detract, let me come back to the topic.

The advantage of doing all three roles was simply this — it allows me full engagement with my C Level in the development of the organisation’s long term business plans. This, in turn, allows me to develop a marketing strategy that has measureable results. And at the end of the day, that’s my personal role objective in order to grow futher into the organisation.

Whilst that is the positive there’s a negative (or is that too strong a word?) side to it too. The negative is having to attend an awful lot of meetings (some of which simply have no focus) and spend an equal amount of time in undertaking discussions with key executives across staff and line functions. In sum about 6 to 7 hours of a work day goes in just interacting with people and I have to put in quite a bit of personal (family) time, as the “think time” required in order to deliver effectively.

By now you may be wondering where I am going with this. Bear with me, dear reader, as this background is important for you to understand the how attitudes impact on work deliverables.

Given the amount of time I spend in meetings & discussions to get project activities rolled out, I’m exposed to a variety of people with a range of skills and expertise (and some are major prima donna’s in their subject matter expertise). The one common thing that I have learnt is this— “an individual’s attitude towards life, reflects and affects how he/she approaches a task”.

In my day job, the organisation is in the midst of implementing and running a new business model. This is change and big change for majority of the organisation’s staff. And change is not easy for all to handle. For some, they take to change like duck takes to water. For others it’s a continuous battle to try and pull the line back to status quo. A continuous see-saw battle of intellect, process management and aligning of personal goals with the business goals.

For my organisation what this change process has achieved is, it has brought to fore, each individuals’ attitudes towards work.  Some are reacting and not acting through thinking; whilst others are simply running on the same spot and feel they are doing a lot.

And the need for speed and quick thinking is testing executives acutely in terms of their management skills. Instead of planning project resources and requirements calmly and logically the push back comes in varied forms—on one extreme it’s couched within massive words of subject matter expertise or on the other end in utter silence to communication going around. In the midst there’s nary a solution to project requirements. And this is where attitude comes to bear!

Challenges that provide a playing field to demonstrate one’s expertise, aid the team and in turn the community (business stakeholders and ultimately the community within which the project would have an impact) should be seen as opportunities to improve one’s self, perform and aid in delivering business goals. They should not be seen as additional work.

So as business managers and team leaders, should we take cognizance of our team’s attitudes? YES! Without understanding and aiding the alignment between the individuals’ personal goals with that of the organisation, obtaining effectiveness from a team member (no matter how qualified and experienced that member is) is next to impossible. What would happen is at best a mediocre output which would impact on the professionalism and image of the organisation, not to say the bottom line. In my next post, we’ll cover the probable solutions that affect attitude development that enable an organisation to effectively obtain positive impact on its daily work.

Related articles

• Culture eats strategy – and it will eat your new processes too (flipchartfairytales.wordpress.com)

Need. Objective. Winning.– The NOW Edge

Halal today is big business. Spanning from food, to fashion, to finance and pharmaceuticals, more and more organisations, medium sized businesses and independent entrepreneurs are scrambling for a piece of the USD2 trillion market (as estimated by the global consulting group AT Kearney).

What drives their interest is purely the huge population numbers that the global Muslim segment offers. At first look, whilst the population numbers may justify venturing into this consumer segment, what’s vital is:

1)  To know where the consumers  with high-purchasing power are (geographical location)

2) To have absolute clarity in understanding their psyche and, thus, their specific needs.

This consumer segment, at 23% of the global population, whilst very appealing numerically, is a segment (unlike others), that needs massive amount of logical & emotional knowledge in order to bring about brand engagement. Only through well planned brand engagement (and perseverance) can profitability come about for an organisation in this segment.

The key difference of this global consumer segment is that its needs cannot be fulfilled with the old-fashioned “one-style fits all” business and marketing approach. The emotional needs of this segment change dramatically as one uses the age, income and cultural filter. This has to be taken into account whilst developing the strategic business plan, as it has far reaching implications in the operating costs for an organisation as well as in ensuring revenue generation.

Here’s my “N.O.W” model– a simple 3-step consumer-centric and consumer intelligence based business strategy development module– that enables a business to plan its market and consumer segment entry.

1. N: NEED (to know)

• Category: Understand the category (within the overall Halal industry) that you are operating in, with regards to the mandatory halal regulations, sharia compliance, governance requirements and category turnover.
• Consumer: identify clearly, in detail, who is the consumer. Their likes, dislikes, needs & wants, shopping behaviour and media usage habits. Use age segmentation to obtain social media usage habits. Identify, professional and personal, interest based social media groups that the target consumer is involved with.
• Communities: identify physical, interest based, communities and social media communities the consumer is interacting and participating in.
• Competition: identify what is the current product used, benefits of the product, its’ marketing process and availability.

This is the “keystone’ of the process. There are no shortcuts to obtaining this consumer knowledge.
In-depth research is a must (and preferably by professional market research firms) in order to obtain as much information as possible so as to help identify, clearly, the most potential consumer segments and markets.

2. O: OBJECTIVE ( what do you want to achieve)

• Goal setting: Clearly enumerate the objectives of the business, within a certain timeline and against clearly identified consumer target groups, in order to have focus for each set goal.

Once the consumer and competition has been mapped out i.e.  One knows

•  who we want to sell to,
• what do we want to sell,
• how to sell it and
• what benefit it would provide the targeted consumer vis-à-vis what he/she is using currently.

Then it’s time to review the business objective and set achievable and measurable goals as key objectives.

The business objectives should, ideally, be a combination, of logic (i.e. turnover, income figures, customer satisfaction percentage target, referral target, associate/partners percentage increase in business transaction volume etc.) and emotion (i.e. emotional benefit that the brand would serve, customer usage, blog membership by customers/partners/ associates, employee projection of brand image etc.)

3. W: WIN ( map out the strategy for achieving the goals)

• Against each objective:
  • Identify the specific target consumer group.
  • Map their needs and media habits.
  • Put the product and its benefits and evaluate against the target consumers’ needs and competitive product available in the market.
  • Draw up individual tactics for market availability of your product in order to be available, easily, to your targeted consumer group.
  • Re-view target consumers media habit and detail out your product communication.

With the steps 1 & 2 in place, ideate and write down the most effective strategy against each business objective.

How will you know which is the most effective strategy?

Evaluate each strategy to see if it delivers successfully against the needs of the targeted consumer segment and provides a clear benefit over any competitive product.

Once the strategy is in place, develop the tactical activity necessary to have it executed. Each strategic direction should have a tactic or planned activity, within a timeline, to deliver the objective. Against each of these activities put in the cost for that activity vis-à-vis expected return (i.e. ROI). This will provide the benchmark for evaluating if the activity is financially viable and profitable. If not, then review and identify a fresh new tactic.

Against each tactic, whilst detailing it out (as a project map) implement a timeline in order to be able review and course-correct. This will aid you to manage as you implement each tactic in order to deliver against the strategy and achieve the objectives set.

The N.O.W model helps you keep your activities in step and enables you to develop an effective market-entry plan that helps you forecast revenue earnings and brand stability.

Is Community Important In Business Strategy?

Michael Porter’s The Competitive Advantage of Corporate Philanthropy provides a very logical formula as to why the corporates favour quick wins instead of basing their business objective on value creation for the community and how it comes back to haunt them. Whereas those who do focus on the community value tend to have sustainable businesses.

Today the consumer environment has changed drastically.

The global financial crisis and explosion of social media (as two immediate critical factors) has led consumers, geographically, to group together on the basis of common interests and sharing of information on anything (from personal status to their daily brands and the corporates owning these brands).

The global Muslim community, as a holistic consumer segment, are a part of these sweeping changes. Whilst the purchasing power of the community is, seemingly, concentrated in few key regional pockets, it’s important to know that in the emerging markets there is a huge segment (of the global Muslim consumers) who require infrastructure, products, and services to the extent that only large, global businesses can provide.

This is an opportunity for growth provided one is willing to approach these markets innovatively. By innovatively, I don’t mean re-creating the wheel, but taking into account the strengths the end market offers, the possible extent of decentralisation, cost-benefit analysis and finally ensuring a value chain that ensures adherence and compliance of the very basic requirement of the community ie. Halal or Sharia compliant.

By identifying the needs or issues that the targeted community group has and mapping the same against the competencies that can be utilised (in the local market) the business can develop a robust business strategy that would deliver community development (through creation of jobs and wealth) and ensure acceptance of the business’s products or services thus providing sustainable long term ROI.

Attitudes and its Impact on work

Visual Courtesy http://www.mondaymusings.org

The past two weeks has been tumultuous! Starting from sharing of best practices in our business planning that leads to highly focused, segmented and revenue oriented marketing activities, detailing out two cooperative collaborations and being the point man for an extremely lucrative and high- profile industry project  its’ been a crazy yet, in its own way, a very satisfying two work weeks.As I sit back and take stock, specifically to get the project process in place, issues revolving primarily around “attitudes” come to mind. I felt, that it would be a good blog post.

So, readers, here’s my take on “attitudes and its impact on work”.

In my day job I wear three hats:

1. Business Planner
2. Marketing Head
3. Point Man

Those of you involved in organisational planning, HR, and performance measurement, would immediately say—“What the…!” Yes, its 3 specific functions, that for the past 10 months I’ve delivered on. And, I’ve loved every minute of it!  The thrill is in the fun of doing it and doing all three well, within the timeline.  Anyways, lest I detract, so let me come back to the topic.

The advantage of doing all three roles was simply this — it allows me to be totally involved (with the C Level) in the organisation’s long term business plans. This, in turn, allowed me to develop a marketing strategy that delivers specific activities (aimed at delivering revenue and image) which makes marketing measureable. Finally, in my last role, it allows me just the level of control I need to ensure the activities are on track to deliver the planned results.

Whilst that the positive there’s a negative (or is that too strong a word?) side to it too. The negative is having to attend an awful lot of meetings (some of which simply have no focus) and spend an equal amount of time in undertaking discussions with key executives across staff and line functions. In sum about 6 to 7 hours of a work day goes in just interacting with people and I have to put in quite a bit of personal, family time, as the “think time” required in order to deliver effectively.

By now you may be wondering where I am going with this. Bear with me, dear reader, as this background is important for you to understand the how attitudes impact on work deliverables.

Given the amount of time I spend in meetings & discussions to get project activities rolled out, I’m exposed to a variety of people with a range of skills and expertise (and some are major prima donna’s in their subject matter expertise). The one common thing that I have learnt is this— “an individual’s attitude towards life, reflects and affects how he/she approaches a task”.

In my day job, the organisation is in the midst of implementing and running a new business model. This is change and big change for majority of the organisation’s staff. And change is not easy for all to handle. For some, they take to change like duck takes to water. For others it’s a continuous battle to try and pull the line back to status quo. A continuous see-saw battle of intellect, process management and aligning of personal goals with the business goals.

For my organisation what this change process has achieved is, it has brought to fore, each individuals’ attitudes towards work.  Some are reacting and not acting through thinking; whilst others are simply running on the same spot and feel they are doing a lot.

And the need for speed and quick thinking is testing executives acutely in terms of their management skills. Instead of planning project resources and requirements calmly and logically the push back comes in varied forms—on one extreme it’s couched within massive words of subject matter expertise or on the other end in utter silence to communication going around. In the midst there’s nary a solution to project requirements. And this is where attitude comes to bear!

Challenges that provide a playing field to demonstrate one’s expertise, aid the team and in turn the community (business stakeholders and ultimately the community within which the project would have an impact) should be seen as opportunities to improve one’s self, perform and aid in delivering business goals. They should not be seen as additional work. So as business managers and team leaders, should we take cognizance of our team’s attitudes? YES! Without understanding and aiding the alignment between the individuals’ personal goals with that of the organisation, obtaining effectiveness from a team member (no matter how qualified and experienced that member is) is next to impossible. What would happen is at best a mediocre output which would impact on the professionalism and image of the organisation, not to say the bottom line. In my next post, we’ll cover the probable solutions that affect attitude development that enable an organisation to effectively obtain positive impact on its daily work.

Related articles

• Culture eats strategy – and it will eat your new processes too (flipchartfairytales.wordpress.com)

Are Your Employees Engaged?

Pic courtesy Scott Adam's Dilbert

Challenging times show an organisation’s ability on creating a high performance organisation through work culture and the employees attitude towards performance.  One of the factors affecting the employees’ attitude is the depth of engagement that the employees have with their corporate brand.

The stronger and deeper the engagement between the employee and the brand, the more productive and effective the manifestation of the brand to its stakeholders.

The organisation or corporate brand is brought to life through the employees across all management levels. Senior management is the de-facto ‘role-model’ whose attitude and behaviour is replicated by mid and junior management in peer-to-peer interaction and in external business dealings. Thus being a key influencer in the overall brand experience that a stakeholder gets to feel.

In the current business environment, with product based differentiation extremely difficult, highly competitive market segments and low competitive advantages coupled with  fragmented consumer segments with low loyalty towards brands, how can an organisation ensure a strong brand identity?

Continuous advertising of the brand communicating the same old key message is no longer an effective solution. Doing what one was doing in the past, prior to the global recession, no longer holds well in assuring brand profitability. Today an organisation’s BOD (board of directors) is only interested in “growth and profitability” simultaneously.

As a COO how do you deliver this?

By having a 100% consumer centric view that brings forth:

1. Leadership through innovative practices,
2. Creativity in growth planning and
3. Ensures brand risk management

The key here is the 100% consumer-centric approach. This will lead the strategic planning process and provide a clear roadmap that would have to be communicated (to employees) and implemented.

Through the communication and clear instructions of process (i.e. what and how to do) there will come about a attitudinal shift amongst employees resulting in effectiveness. Through this shift the organisation would be able to move, albeit slowly but surely, towards a continuous growth path.

But, beware, the path to achieveing such attitudinal shift is not an easy one! In order to achieve the results planned for, it’s often necessary to make some very hard choices that include changing the way work has been done till date.

One of these hard choices is for senior management to change in their approach to work, in order to affect the results. I.E.:To bring about change in ‘preference for the brand’ the organisation’s senior management cannot keep doing what they have always done. Senior management in the key functions of HR, Production, IT, Marketing and Finance need to be innovative in their functional roles. They need to be ingenious and creative.

The lead for such an environment will come from the CEO/COO. As a COO you would need to lead by example and constantly demonstrate innovation and effectiveness.

No change means zero sum game! There’s an old saying– “You can’t do what you’ve always done and expect better results.”
It’s that simple!

To achieve effective results, an organisation must step up its game. After all, its consumers have. Given the times, their approach to a brand experience and their purchasing behaviour has radically altered. If an organisation doesn’t recognise this and take account of it in its business process, it’s driving its brand to the ground!

Bringing about such a change can be categorised as ‘adopting innovative practices’ — taking a totally new approach to the issue at hand keeping the key stakeholder’s benefit in mind.

Two critical resources would be needed to ensure success:

A.      Identifying ‘High Performers’ and empowering and having them engaged.

• High Performers are problem-solvers, not the excuse-makers. Rather than wallow in hardship or defeat, they take positive steps. They are motivated when others aren’t. They stay focused on the desired outcome and creatively work on figuring out a way even when everything’s stacked against them. What separates High Performers from the rest is how they respond to difficult challenges and the roadblocks in front of them.
• The engagement process for a high performer needs to be quite different from rest of the employees. The high performers are ultimately the organisation’s internal and external ‘brand champions’ ie. They represent the dynamism and effectiveness of the brand. Thus they need to be empowered first or brought on board to develop the strategic business direction and thus have ownership which will bring about engagement.

B. Clearly understanding the strategic insight from the stakeholder’s perspective in terms of what their need is—i.e. in simple marketing parlance this means knowing what’s the consumer’s subconscious need or want that the brand must fulfil:

• E.g.: for a financial service product such as credit card, it would be key to know why exactly the consumer needs a credit card. Is it regulatory requirements? Is it peer pressure? Is it an unsaid social status announcement? Delving into this would automatically bring out the consumer’s financial knowledge base covering spending and savings habit. This would provide for risk coverage as well as fixing of credit limit (and thereby aid in restricting bad debts for the financial institution). Additionally, identifying the specific need would open up a ‘direct’ avenue for brand communication, possibly using social media, to help the consumer and thereby aid in the relationship development between the brand and the consumer.

Such strategic marketing approach is considered ‘innovative’ as it uses cross-industry best practices coupled  with core target audience research, socio-economic and cultural trend mapping. Without  such new approachs an organisation would end up doing what it was doing in the past and not achieve any positive results.

The lead for such changes in the work culture has to come from the senior management. Recognising the change areas, identifying required skill sets and direction setting can only come about through leading by example and identifying the high performers who can put in place a changing work culture.

Without innovative leadership and a focussed brand growth and profitability approach at the senior management level, an organisation would lurch on in its day-to-day activity resembling a ‘headless chicken run’.

Net result—employees would become ‘captive’ brand stakeholders with absolutely no engagement with the brand and in it just for the salary! An extremely harmful and dangerous scenario for any corporate brand, as the brand experience, that would manifest externally from such employees would be disastrous.

Employees make the “Brand”….

Employees are the heart of the brand's eco-system

Mid of this year I was involved in a change management assignment. One of the key areas of change was to create a fit between the organisation’s business goals and the employees’ individual objectives. The goal was to make sure a smooth brand experience delivery from the employees.

I was instrumental in evaluating the existing corporate culture and recommending strategic changes in the same to have more ownership from the employees. As I started with meeting key employees, I realised that, both the senior management & the employees, had never really sat down and articulated the work culture or even the philosophy of the organisation that created the prevailing, lackadaisical attitude towards how the brand was projected. Attitudinally the employees were hostile towards the brand!

From a brand’s perspective, importance of corporate culture to and for an employee, is a very key reason in the output of the brand’s image and experience to its stakeholders.

Employees are one of the main stakeholders of any brand. In-fact they are the heart of the brand as its their actions and inter-actions that create the image perception of the brand in the targeted stakeholders mind.  Yet, it’s strange, as to how many organisations (small and medium-sized), fail to acknowledge the importance of “corporate culture” vis-a-vis the employee.

An organisation having strong ethics, shared goals and an individual development base, inspires the employee to strive for delivering to the best of his/her ability. This comes about because the employee “likes” going to work every day, “learns” and is ““appreciated” and that makes the employee imbibe the brand values  and project it. Strong teamwork is visible. Positivity is visible. And success ,of the tactical brand activities, occurs.

So how do we develop, implement and inculcate a change in an existing corporate culture?

It’s possible and do-able provided the senior management team finds value in it, believes in it and champions it through action.

How can it be done?
1: Identify the platform on which the culture would be based: This would need to be based on certain business ethics and social norms that the brand would want to promote and foster among all its stakeholders. Based on this ethical platform find the “values” that the corporate brand should project/uphold.

2: Inform and internalise: through a planned series of interactive workshops, these values to the employees by clearly linking them to their work functions and relating back as to how, not projecting, the same affects the brand and in turn affects the bottom-line.

3: Get the employees involved: Get them to put down, in their own words how they would personalise i.e. project the values themselves and thereby project the culture internally and externally. (At this point also identify and have a few “champions” i.e. leaders who would in a way “police” the cultural implementation.)

4: Ensure measurement: A measurable, performance indicator has to be in place which should be clearly explained to the employee and ensured that comprehension is there i.e.: the employee should be clear that his/her performance (in this area) will affect the company overall and there is direct accountability.

Having initiated the program, keeping momentum going is extremely important. This is where a structured internal communications program for regularly highlighting the employee achievements, undertakings are communicated.

What this does is:
A) It informs the organisation as to who’s championing the specific activities
B) It motivates the competitive spirit within divisions and dept.’s to do their bit and get their names on the “communication roster”

On the whole, the entire staff moves in one, planned direction, thereby projecting the desired behaviour. This benefits the brand as all other stakeholders’ receive a “positive face” of the brand. This in turn strengthens their relationship with the brand and viola leads to increasing revenue.

Do You Need Permission To Drop The Ball?

Post By: Sharifah Raudhah AlQudsy

A few keywords or phrases like ‘shattering the glass ceiling’ and ‘juggling the balls’ are exclusive conversational topics among women. I hear it time and again. Not only in conferences and international summits but also in our usual coffee meets.

Recently those phrases revisited a few of us women business owners, as we were having lunch at an upscale, award winning restaurant belonging to a close friend.

As Sherena, the restaurant owner in her mid 30’s, sat down entertaining us with a few of her signature dishes, we started sharing our daily affairs. Sherena shared with us an upcoming interview she was asked to do based on the very subject– “The Glass Ceiling” and all of us screamed in exasperation!

Jumping to another topic of what other friends are doing led us all to a state of being overwhelmed. Naziehah lamented how we are forever juggling with more balls and how stressful it is for women to make sure we don’t drop any of those balls.

“It’s alright to drop the ball”, you can always pick it up again and continue juggling” I casually replied to the remark and all five faces stared back at me with a blank look.

“Why didn’t I think of that” added another friend, a lawyer turned event organizer.

“That feels like abandoning, don’t you think?” quipped another friend. She had just completed her Master in Enterprise and an embarked on a career in fashion retailing.

That’s how most women think, at least the working women in my circle of friends.

Women have strong nurturing instincts and at times this instinct clashes when they take up more responsibility out of home. Yet bringing up this very feature will do wonders in business. I realized as I am building my business too, and having to deal with this contrarian need of time.

Surprising though for me, I take solace in other women who juggle quite well and are successful in their own field; one is my mother and the other, my younger sister. They share the same positive outlook in life, same traits too and most interestingly they make this “juggling business” looks like a celebration of feminity instead of a heavy burden.

Here’s a few tips that make me and a few of my other friends ‘good jugglers’ and keep us from  feeling overwhelmed:

1. Good planning (with flexibility in mind)

I plan my daily routine to the “T” i.e. daily menu for the family, laundry and major appointments with clients well in advance. Yet I am also prepared for a Plan B when I can’t cook for the family or I need to change my schedule with a certain client for a better business opportunity.

“A good juggler has flexible hands”

2. Learn to delegate (and accept imperfection)

My children are my best assistance. This I learnt from my mother. She taught us to cook, clean the house while she continued to pursue her dream as a late educator. Look around your household and you will see abundant resources. My 8 year old helps to tidy up the house, the 12 year old clean the toilet while my 15 year old is in charge of the kitchen department.

Education in motion I call it!

3. Say No (Tactfully)

Women are just beautiful creatures. I know when I need help and support, I can rely on them. We have a big problem in saying no. It hurts because of our caring and nurturing nature.

But I realize for women to be truly happy, they need to be true to themselves, to their dream. This is when learning to say No to less important things becomes important. Saying it tactfully will help people understand your predicament.

4. Control what goes into your mind (The Media)

I can’t deny that we women are more sensitive, have deeper emotions attached to us. Thus we can get easily overcome by the emotional aspect of feeling overwhelmed, for instance.

I control that feeling by controlling what goes in my brain on a daily basis. Reading good books, listening to good music and recitation of the Quran, prayers/meditation  along with having conversation with good people all help in dispersing negative feelings.

The media (TV especially) can be good antidote provided it helps to calm us instead of arousing certain feelings like anger and sadness. I steer away from programs that bring those feelings about, as much as I can.

Finally, the support of your loved ones, your husband especially will be the icing on the cake. The best person to give ‘permission’ for a woman to drop a ball for me has always been my husband. The remark I gave my friends is a constant echo I receive from my leader, my husband.

Author Bio:

Sharifah Raudhah AlQudsy is a professional networker who helps businesses gain 100% more from their networking investment. She is a speaker, trainer, coach and writer. 

Through her company Face2Face Technology she founded in 2007,Organisations request Sharifah as the authoritative speaker on community networking, internal and external networking and b2b soft skills.

Away from work, Sharifah tends to her small duku (tropical fruit)  farm  and writes and rewrites her assignments for her Toastmaster’s speeches.

She can be reached at face2facetech.com