The Official Blog of Benifys HR Solutions

“The impact of one perceived strength moves leaders to the top 64% in effectiveness, three strengths puts them in the top 26% of the effectiveness.”

~ Zenger and Folkman

The Dilemma of Mr. Just Promoted

Meet Mr. Just Promoted, as the name implies he was just promoted to a leadership position within his firm. He was an executive and he did his work well; that is before he was promoted to a position he had no clue what to do in.

I guess everyone has to reach their respective levels of incompetence according to the Peter Principle. It happens everywhere time and time again, competent people are promoted to positions they don’t have the requisite skill sets for (e.g. A programmer promoted to a Team Leader and expected to be good with MIS and presentation skills), and then asked why they can’t continue their streak of success?

Well the management should really know better than doing that, because not only are you at the risk of dealing with a potentially incompetent leader that you just ‘made’, but you also lose a very efficient employee! Leading requires a number of skills – some you know as a regular employee, others have to acquired, hence the need for Leadership Training Programs.

We rely on what we like to call the “Sphere of Influence” when we need to device a Leadership Development/ Executive Coaching Program. It encompasses an entire set of attributes required by a leader at any particular level of ‘influence’.

The Sphere of Influence

The Skills under the Sphere of Influence

Wait, so what does it all mean – will Mr. Just Promoted get out of this mess?

Of course yes, that’s the entire point of this conversation, isn’t it? But don’t expect anything magical to happen all by itself, this is not an incompetency that he can snap out of, it’s a role he has to grow into in a phased manner.

Alright, so I just copy and paste this stuff here and then make a program – right? Thanks you so much!

A good idea at the surface, but aren’t you making the same mistake again? Half baked information and subsequently bad delivery does more damage than good – while you are right in assuming that these are the basic constructs of a successful program, and you will find a lot others out there as well, but can you deliver it so that it has the maximum possible impact?

OK, so tell me how do you do it?

This may come across as hard selling, but please recognize that the reason we do this is that there are so many ill designed programs made every second – that are made without any thought to structure, delivery or method. This is important. Take this information, contact us if you want further clarification – even make your own program if you feel up to it. But if you’re going to do it, do it right! Following is our methodology for this exercise.

Our Methodology

Training Needs Identification

Through our proprietary needs identification methodology, we carry out a multi-respondent activity which enables us to identify the exact training need for your organization, or the population in your organization that we’re dealing with.


Customized Content Development

Our content developers understand the art of focused content development. We don’t throw the book at the participants, there is enough space for collaborative content development as the delivery happens, and yet there is enough structure that the Benifys content provides for the learning to remain focused and to-the-point. This, of course, may not be true for certain programmes, especially skill development related, where there are validated learning templates that are imparted directly.


Learning Delivery

Delivery takes place in an environment conducive to learning – collaborative content creation (emerging trends for discussion as the workshop progresses), interactive sessions (enabling participants to share their experiences, viewpoints and observations, thereby adding to the overall learning for the group), and learning exercises (role plays, case studies, fillers with hidden learning, etc.) are all an integral part of the delivery methodology.


Reinforcement

We understand that the learning during a workshop, however interactive it is, begins to wear off after the participants are re-exposed to the working environment. For this, special care is taken to enroll the participants on an on-going process that fosters application of skills or learning at their workplace. With the client organizations actively supporting the post-workshop learning agenda, this exercise has shown dramatic results in enabling retention amongst the participants.


Assessment

In order to assess the effectiveness of training, a customized ‘pre’ and ‘post’ training assessment is carried out on a 360 degree basis.

Benifys on Learning and Development

We take L&D seriously. The entire Benifys learning methodology is centered around retention of knowledge and applicability of skills to the work place. Through an extensive exercise of needs identification, customized course and content development, learning delivery, reinforcement and assessment, we ensure that the learning remains embedded in your organizational DNA.

The month of June was strange, just as life is.


Australia gets ready to honour Nelson Mandela, the icon of equality and anti-racism, and a few hooligans bring it contempt of the world by attacking harmless Indians on their shores. That their cricket team brings it further disgrace is another matter. And the fact that they are turning out to be sore losers as they walk out of the field that they dominated for so long – screaming, sulking, kicking-the-air, blaming everything and everyone but themselves – is a whole new story altogether. Quite unlike the ‘coloured’ grace that the West Indians displayed about a decade back.


Look at the contradictions closer home – Sania beats a much highly ranked player one day, and loses to an unheralded opponent the other; Saina brings glory by beating the third seed and winning her maiden Super Series title, and crashes out to an unknown the next; Indian cricket team can’t even reach the semi-finals of the tournament they won the last time around, blaming the IPL in the process, while the other teams think the IPL was the greatest thing to happen to help them peak at the right time; while criminals still run parts of the country, the Infosys honcho finds his way to the cabinet, signals that the Indian political system is attaining some degree of maturity in parts; the CPM wants to ban a right wing organisation, but not the apparently more dangerous left wing extremists.


There were knee jerk reactions too – while the move to do away with the Class X Board examinations is welcome, the 100 day deadline is not – such decisions with far reaching consequences need to be thought through in greater detail, and viable alternatives put in. Let’s not get rid of one monster and create another.
An interesting bit of data that catches the eye is that the tolerance level of Delhi and Mumbai to same sex relationships is much lower than the national average – so much for perceptions – one would have thought the opposite.


It’s time to break long held perceptions – Benifys added another client to its fold, adding strength to our belief that the HR Outsourcing model is here to stay, people just need to break away from mindsets that disallow a perfectly balanced approach to running their HR function. The day is not far away, we know it.
And finally, you can’t talk about the month of June 2009 without saying goodbye to the moonwalker. RIP, MJ – you made an impact. Planet Earth will remember you.


Have a great month ahead, and keep smiling…

Being a committed HRO firm, we try as and when we get time, to keep an eye on the pulse of what’s new and what people are thinking in the online sphere of human resources. Here are some of the articles that caught our eye during the past few weeks; not to say the others were in any way less fascinating… the fact is that it’s a sea out there, and it’s overflowing with knowledge, information and perspectives. We can only get you glimpses of what people are thinking, it’s you who has to take the plunge; hope you enjoy the update!

Kris Dunn of Fistful of Talent talks about how office e-mail wars never benefited anyone.

Jason Alba of JibberJobber lists out the things you should consider if your job search sucks

Louise Fletcher of Career Hub tells us how messing up, facing rejection and nervousness can help you, and if it doesn’t, then what to do about it.

Chris Watkins of Ask The Manager responds to a reader about a strange dilemma; what would you do if you were given no work and then asked why you aren’t working?!

This we like! Steve Roesler of All Things Workplace clears the fuss about leadership talent crisis with one line that really strikes home – “if you just read, you will never lead”

Alright, this might not be directly related to HR per se, but check out this video of self-help author Brian Tracy (now the chairman of Brian Tracy International), where he gives a fresh perspective on the concept of goals; he considers goal to be only unsolved problems that need a solution. You can view his Blog here.

In this video executive coach Leila Bulling Towne talks about three mistakes that leaders should avoid making under any circumstances. Leila guides leaders to business and career growth, her passion is drawing connections between organizational goals and individual strengths. You can also find her on twitter.

A presentation given by Amit Ranjan of SlideShare at Nasscom titled “How organizations can harness the power of Web2.0″? He demonstrates how every listener has become a DJ, and every casual writer a publisher with the advent of the WEB 2.0. He also lists out the ways in which organizations can ride this wave and diversify their various functions online.