A Frog's Tail - Chapter 2 - ( Building a Passionate Organization)

Chapter 2: Uncover the Hidden Talent

My new found mentor and leadership Guru cleared his throat and said “Once you teach them HUMILITY which is the foundation. Then the next thing you must do is to teach your employees is to how to Uncover The Hidden Talent.

I interrupted him and asked “Sir, could you please explain what does Uncover the hidden Talent mean?

He slowly opened his mouth “Uncovering the talent means”, making people realize what they are good at... what they can do with what they already have? Making them explore within. Making them to take risk and fail and learn more than what they know. Helping them in identifying real them which was never explored. Remember each one of us blessed and bestowed with some thing special, and we must understand what we are good at. If you want to build a great organization then you must look identifying what your each employee is good and make them explore and he paused, took a deep breath.

Oh alright I said; now I know what does Uncovering the talent means (and I giggled), “How can a company do this? It costs a lot of money if any company?

We must understand that to build a great organization we need great people, and no company can sustain without great employees, in future if they don’t have right people at the right position. “They call it as right horse for the right course”, the only way any company or organization can grow is by letting their employee take risk, and risk is not always failure. Some times it is the only way to innovate, do you know my son… Almost 80% of employees are not happy with the kind of work they do? Which basically means great companies use only 20% of there work force, now think and visualize how big a company can grow if they use 100% of there work force..

I was baffled; well I must say I felt how we can go so bad… “First time in my entire life I totally felt that I was a fool so far, I felt I knew some thing about corporate world.

I can think of a friend of mine, who was such a fabulous singer once. He ended up working for a company which hardly pays anything. We are sure that we know at least 90% of people are doing what they never liked at one time. We have an education system all over the world which produces products not the humans. We all dreamt of being some thing while we were small kids but ended up doing some thing which we never thought of. This world wants humans not the machine to innovate, machines can only take commands but humans can innovate think beyond. Only companies which develop Humans can sustain in future!!!

He continued when you let people to do what they like to do, they can see bigger picture which is impossible. And they can do wonders; we have a brain which we hardly use. Now if any organization or company wants to be best, they should tap on that unused brain of employees. I have heard many companies calling in great consultants to solve their internal problems, my simple advice for them why don’t you build people within so that you don’t have to look outside. Remember “what you can do to yourself no one else can do it”.

There are many great leaders and achievers who reached the Mount Everest in their own profession. All they did was to know what they liked to do and asked some one to pay for it. You must never look at their education rather look at their passion! And education is not passion; no one was ever passionate about education.

Meanwhile I was almost on my feet; I was literally down on my knees. All I wanted was to know more from this man and how this can help me. I was feeling cold and I suppose it was around seven in the evening. Passengers in the bus were asleep and when I looked back I felt as if there were no one apart from my master and I.

I waited from him to complete and I asked “Sir, Tell me ways how we can Uncover The Hidden Talent”?

I felt he was getting all heated up to answer my question, there are simple ways I will tell you today which will help you in Uncovering The Hidden Talent”.

Ø  Understand what each employee wants, you can never lead people if you can’t understand them. As I said earlier people are made of feelings, emotions and little bit of brain.

Ø  Ask your employees to dig deeper and wider to find the reservoir, the only way to find reservoirs of wealth is to keep on digging.

Ø  Use competency mapping to identify the skills they are really good at.

Ø  Hire right people with right skills required otherwise don’t hire at all. See the big picture how organization will look like after 5 years and the skills they require to achieve that vision of being the best.

Ø  Ask people you lead what they would like to do the most on this earth.

Ø  Make them do things which they love to do it the most.

Ø  Identify what they are good at and how they performed when they did what they liked.

Ø  Tell them how they can work to better that and how the organization is willing to them to explore what they really are.

Ø  Use coaching and don’t use feedback… when you start doing some thing new people tend to fail.  Failure is not when fail in doing some thing, but when you have no one to share your failure. And Gilbert Arland categorically said” when an archer misses the mark he turns and look for fault within himself. Failure to hit the bull’s-eye is never the fault of the target. To improve your aim, improve yourself.

Ø  Most importantly show them how they can use their uncovered hidden talent to help the organization and create an environment to support them.

He stopped and looked at me to check whether I was listening to him or not. My eyes were wide opened and I was thinking about a situation where I working in an organization. I remember when I said to one of the Sr manager why people leave the organization; it is not because they are getting more money. People are searching for a place where they find themselves.

I felt as if I was all awake said” Sir, how can you create such a great environment, and as we all know people have different skills?

He started with same calmness and compassion, there are very less companies use a model called ROWE. In this model people doesn’t have a fixed time to work, all that matters is the result, they can work from home, from café, bar, hell or heaven. But the real fact why company doesn’t follow this kind of working model is because they don’t trust their employees. Let me expound on this a little more, there are companies. Where employees are expected to use 20% of their time in doing what they like to do. And some of the most interesting products were innovated on this 20% of time not in 80%.

Best Buy did not invent the post-geographic office; an employee can come anytime and walk out anytime. Tech companies have been going bedouin for several years. At IBM (IBM), 40% of the workforce has no official office; at AT&T, a third of managers are untethered. Sun Microsystems Inc. calculates that it's saved $400 million over six years in real estate costs by allowing nearly half of all employees to work anywhere they want. And this trend seems to have legs. A recent Boston Consulting Group study found that 85% of executives expect a big rise in the number of unleashed workers over the next five years. In fact, at many companies the most innovative new product may be the structure of the workplace itself. (Bloomberg business week)

When you let employees to do what they like to do, they will surprise you with their creativity on and off work. Here are the words of wisdom from Thomas Edison “If we did all the things we were capable of doing, we would literally astound ourselves.” In my experience of working with a well known company, I had seen many who had great talents but very less opportunity of using them. I was little embarrassed because even I have never tried to understand the employees. I have always treated them commodities’ to achieve the target rather than treating them as employees.

It was almost eight ‘0’ clock by now, bus stopped near a tea shop. And conductor shouted loudly “If any of you want to have, tea, snacks, or want to smoke please get down and come back within 15 minutes and we are not going to stop the bus till we reach our destination”. He was an old man in his forties; I suppose he was listening to us.

My new found leadership mentor and I walked down, and I asked him Sir, would you like tea or coffee. He promptly said Coffee for me please… I was delighted to serve him. I quietly asked would you like to eat something or would like to smoke. He said I don’t smoke! Just because he cannot I had control my urge to pollute some air. I tried to see if I can manage but I wasn’t successful.  He was looking around and savoring the coffee with utmost love, and I was enjoying my tea without a smoke. I m sure some of you who smoke can understand how terrible the situation would have been for me. I was just waiting to complete the tea and get back to bus.

Conductor started shouting “bus will leave please get in side”. Slowly we got inside the bus and comfortably sat. In India if you are travelling in the bus its sight to see how passengers talk over the phone, some shout so loud that every one travelling in the bus can hear. Likewise the lady sitting next to us was talking to her husband I suppose I would not know. But she was shouting at the top of her voice for next thirty minutes so we had stop for a while.

As the lady stopped…………………