| by Ajantha Dharmasiri
( December 31, 2012, Colombo, Sri Lanka
Guardian) A brand new year is ahead of us.
As usual, people tend to have New Year resolutions. My suggestion is to go
beyond resolutions, to have specific reinforcements. For that, I would like to
suggest 13 thoughts leading to thorough tasks, especially with the Sri Lankan
managers in mind. As usual, I have this tendency to brand them. Let me call
them ’13 Es of Excellence’.
Excellence through 13 Es
Excellence is all about being exceptionally
good. When applied to enterprises, it involves exceptional achievements in a
consistent manner. For that to happen, employees have to excel as well. In
doing so, they would demonstrate productive practices. I would like to identify
13 such action verbs.
Efficient
We all complain about lack of time. Even
though, there are seminars, workshops, trainings and lectures on ‘time
management,’ we really cannot manage time. It is finite and fixed. Instead what
we can do is to “manage ourselves” in getting best out of the given limited
time. The only way to do that is to be efficient in out tasks. It involves
minimising the wastages, reducing the defects, curtailing the deviations etc.
Let’s be efficient in the year 2013.
Effective
Being efficient is not enough. We can
efficiently climb a ladder placed against a wrong wall. Effectiveness is
results related. It deals with the outputs and the outcomes. That’s where we
need to being with the end in mind. The mistake we do sometimes is trying to be
super-duper efficient, losing track of the larger goal. Let’s be effective in
the year 2013.
Empathic
As we know, empathy is getting into others
shoes and walking like them. In other words, having the ability to look at a
problem or an issue from the other’s frame of view. Sri Lankan managers and
administrators can improve vastly on this. Rather than jumping into conclusions
merely looking at one side of the story, a mature broad approach of being
empathic is required. Let’s be empathic in the year 2013.
Energetic
We need to be ‘corporate athletes’ in
maintaining healthy mind-body balance. Energy flows out not by consuming more
‘energy drinks,’ but committing to exercise regularly. Unfortunately we see
quite the contrary in the corporate world, where most of the things are
remote-controlled. Finding quality time for physical exercises on a regular
basis will be one sure cure for physical inactivity. Having a healthy dietary
pattern, in opting to be fit than fat, is another vital need. Let’s be
energetic in the year 2013.
Enthusiastic
Happy employees are productive employees.
That’s what the research says. Interestingly, that’s why some enthusiastic
enterprises have resorted to measure ‘laughs per hour’. There are ground
realities one cannot ignore. Either one has to find the work he/she loves to
do, or love the work he/she has to do. Having a positive approach to work is an
absolute must. As Theodore Roosevelt said, “do what you can, with what you
have, wherever you are”. Let’s be enthusiastic in the year 2013.
Envision
“Dare to dream, dare to act, dare to fail,
dare to succeed”. So goes an old saying. Everything begins with envisioning. As
Walt Disney said, if you can dream it, you can deliver it. Unfortunately we see
more ‘day dreams’ in Sri Lankan workplaces, especially after lunch. The need of
the hour is to be more growth-oriented in terms of working towards long term
goals. Let’s envision in the year 2013.
Enhance
We need to enhance our knowledge and skills.
With the internet as a vast ocean of knowledge offering a variety of informal
learning approaches, learning has become a part and parcel of our lives.
Unfortunately, we visit the internet to find ‘figures’ instead of ‘facts and
figures’. Sharpening ourselves with cutting-edge knowledge is an absolute must
in facing competition. As Socrates said a long time ago, we learn from “the
womb to the tomb”. Let’s enhance ourselves in the year 2013.
Engage
Employee engagement has already become a buzz
word in the business circles. It captures the essence of employees’ head, hands
and heart involvement in work. It refers to employee’s psychological state
(e.g. one’s identification with the organisation), his/her disposition (e.g.
one’s positive feeling towards the organisation) and performance (e.g. one’s
level of discretionary effort). In brief, it captures affective (feeling),
cognitive (thinking) and behavioural (acting) dimensions of an employee. We
need to engage more in order to excel. Let’s engage more in the year 2013.
Explore
This is essentially about being creative, in
thinking ‘out of the box’. It reminds me of what our veteran writer Kumaratunga
Munidasa said a long time ago: “A nation without innovation will not prosper,
but will lie lamenting, being unable to beg.” Innovation has paved way for many
a country to succeed in becoming globally competitive. Where are we with regard
to innovation? How many new patents Sri Lankans register annually?
Nanotechnology can be sited as one promising area where innovation has begun to
yield dividends. Let’s explore in the year 2013.
Empower
As Lao Tsu said a long time ago, great
leaders are “leader breeders”. Such a transformation can only be possible
through empowerment. It involves, on the one hand, delegation, Assigning tasks
to others to handle, whilst being accountable. On the other hand, it involves
development. The fundamental mistake we do is to simple delegate tasks without
developing the team. Let’s empower in the year 2013.
Endure
This is all about continuation. We start
things with a big bang and discontinue half-way through. Sustainability has
become a critical factor in the midst of business failures. Chaotic weather
patterns across the globe are a grim reminder that eco-friendly practices of
work need a lot more attention. What matters are not only profits and people,
but planet as well. Let’s endure in the year 2013.
Embrace
In a rapidly changing well-connected world,
we need to embrace best practices, and perhaps the ‘next’ practices. Take
recruitment for an example. Rather than having an interview by a panel of
senior members who have no idea about what real interviewing is all about, the
time has come to move towards professionalism. There are new techniques to
conduct behavioural interviews. Required competencies to a job against actual
competencies of a candidate can be accessed through a well-designed assessment
centre. The starting point is to acknowledge the need to change in
appropriately adapting the new practices. Let’s embrace more in 2013.
Emancipate
This is the subtlest aspect of all. It deals
with practicing the values. The numerous stories we heard ranging from global
credit crunch to Golden Key chaos, call for the need of ethicality. It is not
achieving short-term gains ‘either by hook or by crook,’ but something much
deeper, grounded on solid principles. Ethics is difficult to define in a
precise way. In a general sense, ethics is the code of moral principles and
values that governs the behaviours of a person or a group with respect to what
is right or what is wrong. “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you”,
says the golden rule of ethics. Let’s emancipate in 2013.
Prosperous 2013 through practicing the 13 Es
“Excellence is an art won by training and
habituation. We do not act rightly because we have virtue or excellence, but we
rather have those because we have acted rightly. We are what we repeatedly do.
Excellence, then, is not an act but a habit.” So said Aristotle a long time
ago, which has much relevance for today and tomorrow.
Tom Peters and Robert Waterman wrote the
bestselling book, ‘In Search of Excellence,’ way back in 1982. As Peters and
Waterman reflected in marking the 20th anniversary of their seminal work, it
was all about organisation and people. How best to utilise people to achieve
organisational objectives.
At a time when Sri Lanka is progressing in
multiple fronts towards excellence, our managers have a greater role to play in
contributing their fullest towards national prosperity. The dawn of 2013 offers
us another opportunity to have a fresh look at our lives. Embracing the 13 Es
will ensure the exceeding of expectations, leading to excellence.
May the 2013 will be a year of excellence for
you as an individual, an interactive team member, as well as an institutional
employee.
(Dr. Ajantha Dharmasiri is a learner, teacher, trainer, researcher,
writer and a thinker in the areas of Human Resource Management and
Organisational Behaviour. He is also a regular columnist with the Financial
Times, a daily based in Colombo, where this column was originally appeared. He
can be reached on ajantha@pim.lk.)
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