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Evolution of Leadership

Are you modern enough? Using internet explorer? How would a modern tech savvy accountant look at a pen paper type? How would a Prezi user look at a PowerPoint presentation? Do we use tools even after they are obsolete? Why do some tools never become archaic?

The above arguments are intuitive when you talk of tangible tools and material machines, but do they apply to leadership and ideas? Can ideas be outdated? Why do leaders follow outdated leadership styles? I was reading John Doerr's "Measure what matters" and I was humbled, I felt like a caveman. I guess that's what history and evolution of technology does to a keen reader practitioner!

Taylor and Ford had developed authoritarian model of leadership, which they called scientific management (v1.0) - crisp and hierarchical. Peter Drucker then comes up with a rather humanistic approach, 50 years later. Drucker says that a corporation should be a community "built on trust and respect for workers - not just a profit machine ". He suggested that worked be consulted on company goals. He suggested balance of short term and long term planning, instead of crisis management, informed by data and enriched by regular conversations. When people choose a course of action, they are more likely to see through it.

If this v2.0 update came up in 1954, why are people still following v1.0? I guess we all have a lesson from the partnership of Patel and Nehru. Patel was amazing at ex*****on, but he knew that he wasn't as forward looking or modern as Nehru was. Patel came from a conservative background and was a bit patriarchal. He was humble enough to collaborate with Nehru and learn from him. Likewise Nehru knew his flaws and was happy to let Patel run the show in critical areas. We have a Patel in us - very good executor, but lost in style of the most. We have a Nehru in us - soft, sensitive, charismatic but weak in ex*****on. How do we juggle between both probably decides how we embrace the new version! So the Patel in me was keenly reading the Nehru in John Doerr!

Peter Drucker called this " management by objectives" or MBOs. This is also called the HP Way now. A meta-analysis of several studies showed 56% productivity gains due to high commitment to MBOs and 6% when commitment was low.

However, MBOs were centrally planned, sluggishly trickled down the hierarchy. They were often reduced to KPIs, without soul and context. When tied to salaries, they killed risk appetite. Drucker realized that this was failing, he said, MBOs were just a tool and not the great cure for management inefficiency.

Drucker was exploring a model which create a environment that values and emphasizes output without falling into what he called "activity trap" - output is the key to increasing productivity while looking to increase activity can result in just the opposite.

And yes you guessed it right! Then, arrived the version 3.0 at Intel, courtesy their visionary COO and later CEO Andy Grove. He called it iMBO (Intel's MBO) in honor of Drucker. Andy rarely referred to objectives without talking of key results. While objective was the goal post, the key results (OKRs) were the measurable milestones - with What, How, by When.

MBOs-What
OKRs -What, How.

MBOs- Annual
OKRs- Quarterly/Monthly

MBOs- Private and Siloed
OKRs- Public and Transparent

MBOs- Top down
OKRs- Bottom up or sideways (50%)

MBOs- Tied to compensation
OKRs- mostly divorced from compensation

MBOs- risk averse
OKRs- aggressive and aspirational

This new approach was the backbone of Operation Crush, launched by Intel against Motorola whose Motorola 68000 posed a serious threat to Intel 8086. Intel launched a massive program which included a multimillion dollar adspend for the first time. Motorola was well run, with agility, they posed a challenge and within two weeks Intel responded. Somebody joked that he could a plane ticket from Chicago to Arizona approved, in the time Intel took to launch the campaign.

And of course there is v4.0 which John Doerr developed and coached several companies including Google. Sundar Pichai talks the OKR language if you observe. I'm wondering how I could evolve my way from v1.0 to a whole new v5.0, as my team is excited about our M&A system which would be kick started today!

Andy Grove the pioneer of OKRs (v3.0) was an avid reader and kept in touch with latest developments in cognitive science, technology and diverse areas. He didn't publish enough papers like Drucker, nor did he come up with a theory like Gordon Moore, but his ideas lead one of the most impossible tech revolution in human history.

Andy Grove said that bad companies are destroyed by crisis, good companies survive crisis, while great companies are improved by them! The Intel story and their dominance in microprocessor segment stands as a testimony. So how do we talk to the Patel and the Nehru, the liberal and the authoritarian, the conservative and the modern, the doer and the thinker, within us to gestate a new model of leadership. People can complement each other, but can do we an Anniyan or Aparichutudu (a movie about split personality disorder) to be that super awesome leader!

Happy morning, hope this addresses my early morning messages OKRs- educate the reader, empower the thinker, energize the champion! Have a super awesome day ahead 😁

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So called gifted students

We use the phrases "'slow learners'" and "'gifted students"', but are they stereotypes and biases? Are they really gifted? Or is it a scope for improvement in our system, to cater to all children, differently, in a better manner? Through this post I would like to take on some misconceptions in education.

We may or may not have neurobiological account of how some people think better than the others. But I definitely believe the genetic narrative is lot overrated and so much of this can be nurtured, rather than expecting it from nature.

This goes back to "purity versus parity" argument. Are some people purer than the others or is everybody equal? It isn't surprising that many people still believe in purity, due to our feudal roots, caste history and deep-rooted assumptions which get passed on through generations.

However several great educators have considered "'genius"' to be something which can be coached. Although I'm extending their ideas to get into the idea of "'genius"'. Do we see method or do we magic? If we can dissect the method, we can emulate and replicate best of achievers, in our own way, pushing the human race forward.

Some kids manage to pick up openness in thinking and the ambition to do more. They need proper mentoring, to adapt in a society which can pull people down. This is why I take time to identify such kids and tell them not to care about those people who discourage them. I try to channelize their energy with a goal which I make them discover and also by getting them to explain their thoughts and ideas to more people, so they have clarity in their thinking and others can get inspired by their ambition .

If we can break anything down into its simplest part, we can perform an inception of the idea in our mind, as articulated by Chris Nolan, while describing his motivation behind a movie with the same name.

There are so many fantastic philosophers and thinkers out there, we just need to go out there fishing, to pick up all their ideas. This helps us in seeing higher aims of education, higher aims of life. This isn't genius, this is just human, this is what we are all equally capable of. If we see process, we see potential, if we see product, we see genius. Its up to us!

Let us believe that we are all geniuses, we are all capable of going beyond the thinking of an Einstein, Shakespeare or Gandhi. It is very important for all educators to believe this, because the next generation draws inspiration from us.

As a school/college student, I got exposed to mindset reformers like Feynman, Raghuram Rajan, Socrates, Amartya Sen, Steve Jobs and this helped me in overcoming the conditioning which society puts us through. I was often perceived to be rude or elitist , but may that was a defense mechanism. But can we nurture a system wherein kids are all ambitious, with humble roots, learn from great journeys of reformers. I believe that these courageous stories can propel many ambitious journeys.

Every body is gifted, everybody can create a lot of value to peoplekind, but how can we as educators enable that? Questions to ask!

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