Window to Your World

 Did I react to this person/ scenario in a certain manner because of what I felt at the moment or was it just my prejudice that made me act so. Lakshmi Dhanraj delves deep into the realms of a person’s mind and tells us how transactional analysis could help us uncover our own true selves.

“We choose our joys and sorrows long before we experience them” - Kahlil Gibran

I do not know with what level of profundity Kahlil spoke these lines. All that I know is that it conveys the deeper dynamics of experience in simple truth. Various sciences have conveyed the above message but it is with the perspective of transactional analysis that I thought it’d be interesting to share. For those who do not know what transactional analysis is, it is a science that explains the multi-dimensional approaches of and factors behind communication\behavior in its various forms .

One of its concepts is called ‘the racket system’. Below is the explanation from Wikipedia: “A racket feeling is a familiar set of emotions, learned and enhanced during childhood, experienced in many different stress situations, and maladaptive as an adult means of problem solving. A racket is then a set of behaviours which originate from the childhood script whose covert goal is not so much to solve the problem, as to experience these racket feelings and feel internally justified in experiencing them.”

In simple words, it is just a cover on top of your real feelings. For Eg: In many instances, when a person is hurt, instead of showing his hurt feelings (for fear of looking weak and vulnerable probably) he may show it as anger. Some disguise fear as anger. This is very typical of certain teachers \bosses who with fear of losing respect and command over a class will maintain a strict angry tone in their behavior and delivery.

There could be many examples of racket feelings and we cannot have generalizations; everything is context dependant. Yet guilt is always a racket feeling (that is what my trainer told and it seemed right) for it has no constructive use.

It is interesting that we choose the feeling we want to feel well in advance (decision moves from conscious to unconscious realm as the child grows up) and then create\generate situations or distort reality by clouded perception to experience the racket feeling. One may actually generate an appropriate situation or misperceive reality so as to experience the racket feeling.

How do I get to be noticed?

A good example can be the following, “there’s a three-year-old child whose parents are working. The child falls sick one day. Both the parents take off for days and spend time with the child. They play with her, read stories, sing songs etc. It is quite possible that the child will get the message that for it to have attention and to be shown love, it has to fall sick. As the child grows, she may have the habit of falling sick often, or getting depressed so as to get attention and love. She does not do it intentionally as an adult. The decision made in childhood works from an unconscious realm. Though she may consciously not like her behavior, unconsciously she may want it. This is the reason that psychologists advise not to celebrate sickness. We should celebrate health. A better way of dealing will be to give equal attention in times of healthy and sick conditions and meetig the needs appropriately.

Anything that we give attention to is one way of nurturing it. Attention can be positive (Eg: appreciation) or negative (Eg: Criticism). In school, the children who don’t study well are generally naughtier and throw up tantrums. How else will they get the attention if all attention goes to the top scorers? A teacher should therefore have a teaching design that addresses the attention needs of all students independent of their scores. A practical application of this awareness in a corporate world will be not to celebrate lack of deliverables by giving too much negative attention to it. Encouragement when target is achieved along with learning and corrective strategies from failures (lack of achievement of results) can be a healthy way of dealing with employees in terms of their performance.

It is interesting to see how these childhood strategies get repeated in a corporate set up as well in a multi-dimensional way. In life, we come across many who irrespective of their designation or profile get into certain situations and experience the same racket feelings. Transactional analysis states that our subconscious mind vibrates in certain states and hence the appropriate situation and people come into their lives and they get into reinforce their beliefs in order to experience the racket feeling. Thus we find that there are repetitive patterns in one’s life.

It can be helpful for one to be aware of their real feelings experienced during stress. It is interesting to note that the feeling will be mostly the same across situations. This awareness can help a long way in gaining peace within and without.

I am yet to understand and convince myself of all the concepts of transactional analysis. But I thought that this sharing could stimulate a healthy thought process in the reader. Looking forward to others views on this subject!

Making of A Professional

"‘Professional’ – You might have heard this term aplenty in your career but have you truly earned it?"

‘You have hardly spent a year in your present job, which you got just after completing your engineering degree. Why do you want to change your job so soon?’ I asked a candidate who had walked in for an interview. ‘I would like to work for a professional company,’ he replied. When I asked further as to why he thought his present employer was not one, he was quick to say ‘I am the only professional in my department, no other person, not even my boss has a professional degree’. To him, professionalism does not mean anything beyond having a professional qualification. Though my immediate reaction was one of pity for the kind of professionals our colleges are turning out, I quickly realised that my own definition of professional was far from perfect and needed refinement. If I were to educate the candidate at that point of time what it meant to be a professional, I could have only said more about what being a professional was not: it is not merely having a professional degree; it’s not about just gaining expertise in one’s subject; it’s just not about the ability to flaunt jargons in one’s talk. Then what was it about? I was not happy with what I knew and I felt ignorant. Education, as someone said, is a progressive realisation of ignorance and this kind of disturbance help me focus my learning.

When I was scanning the bookshelves at Landmark, I immediately pulled out the book with a red jacket that carried on its spine the silvery letters THE PROFESSIONAL. While the title caught my attention, the author enamoured me to start reading it immediately. Although I have not read the earlier books of Subroto Bagchi, The High Performance Entrepreneur and Go Kiss the World, I have always been captivated by his columns that used to appear in the Times of India. His writings have the simplicity of words, clarity of thoughts and more importantly, a profound authenticity of expression, which make them touching and inspiring.

Unlettered Professional

As is my wont, I started reading the book page by page rather than skimming through. Bagchi opens with the chapter ‘Burial of the dead’. He very succinctly brings out the idea of who a true professional is in the first four pages of the book itself. He narrates the story of a real-life character Mahadeva, whose life revolves around unclaimed dead bodies. This is not someone who is conventionally associated with the term ‘Professional’. As he grew up uncared for in the vicinity of a hospital, one day it so happened that the police asked him to bury an unclaimed corpse for a meagre fee and from then on, he became the go-to guy for burying the city’s unclaimed corpses.

Every time the police picked up a corpse that had no claimants, Mahadeva was summoned. Whenever he got a call to reach the morgue, day or night, hail or high water, he arrived there. Most of the time, it was a gruesome experience dealing with a body; there was no telling what had been the cause of death or state of decomposition. He did not choose his clients; he accepted them in whatever size, shape or state they came in; he treated them with respect and care, with due dignity. He was not an employee of the hospital, nor did the cops supervise what he did with the corpses. He did not have a boss who wrote his appraisal or gave feedback. He did his work with such dedication, focus, care and concern that he was soon in demand. Mahadeva had buried more than 42,000 corpses in his lifetime and his dedication has earned him phenomenal public recognition.

Differentiating qualities:

From the story of Mahadeva, Bagchi brings out the two qualities that differentiate a professional from someone who is simply professionally qualified: one is the ability to work unsupervised and, two, the ability to certify the completion of one’s work. If you have to get the complete sense of what I have tried to comprehend, there is no better way than to read the book. The story was so moving that tears welled up in my eyes as I was reading. I am sure that the story of Mahadeva, a professional in the truest sense of the word, will always remain in the heart of every professional who reads the book.

Integrity the hallmark of a true Professional:

I find the master storyteller in Bagchi as he spins the real life incidences of his rich and multi-faceted experience into enthralling stories, and there cannot be subtler ways in driving the lessons for the making of a professional.

When he shares his personal experiences that imbued in him the quality of integrity, I, as a trainer, wonder as to how I would be able help my learners imbibe this quality – what does integrity mean in actionable terms. He comes out with help: In the professional context, it means the following:

•We follow rules.

•Where rules do not exist, we use fair judgement.

•When in doubt, we do not go ahead and do what suits us; we seek counsel.

•Finally, faced with a dilemma, we ask ourselves: can my act stand public scrutiny without causing embarrassment to me and my family?

He says that if these four tenets are applied, our professional conduct will always meet the highest standards of integrity.

Professional Qualities

In writing this book, Bagchi has done his own research to find out from eminent men and women from different walks of life, whom he came across in the course of his work, as to what qualities they admired in a professional and what they considered unprofessional. From what he has collated from their feedback, here are the top ten attributes of a professional:

1. Integrity

2. Commitment and ownership

3. Action orientation and goal seeking

4. Continuous learning

5. Professional knowledge

6. Communication

7. Planning, organising and punctuality

8. Quality of work

9. A positive attitude, approachability, responsiveness

10. Being an inspiring reference to others; thought leadership

While referring to the last attribute of ‘being an inspiring reference to others’, he says that tomorrow’s professional must have a beacon-like presence in a world, and being ordinary will no longer be considered professional. He has also presented the ten markers of unprofessional conduct in the subsequent chapter.

Building a Professional Culture:

Bagchi has presented The Professional in a sequentially arranged manner under seven broad parts, namely, Integrity, Self-awareness, Professional qualities, Managing volume, Managing complexity, New world imperatives and The professional’s professional.

The development of a professional is a life-long learning curve and there is no beginning or end in this pursuit. Reading the book alone cannot make one a professional. But it is about being one. And as Bagchi concludes, being a professional is a matter of personal choice and the values one opts to live by.

But, if you want to build a professional culture in your organisation, you have to engage in a collective conversation on the various aspects of being professional so as to imbibe the understanding. That’s how the organisation can learn to be professional.

How to Crack that Cold Call

"Receiving a call from someone you either do not know or you do not want to hear from can be quite a bother. Well, making such calls is no less a pain, and, in fact, can be much more stressful."

Cold calling is a can’t-do-without-it sort of sales tool used today. Despite more modern ways of selling and unforeseen marketing strategies that emerge every other week, the well from which every businessman draws his water is the ‘contacts database’ which at some point of time was either collated through, or used, for cold calling. And it serves as a starting point to not only establish a business but also to set career paths. Many entrepreneurs and professionals have crossed milestones, starting off with a cold call.

BREAKING THE ICEBERG

The general perception about cold calling, however, does not reflect the enormous potential that it contains. While receivers turn down such calls with the tagline ‘nuisance’ or ‘hard-selling’, callers themselves tend to think about their job as a ‘dry’ one – which is always full of rejection, subject to rudeness and looked down upon.

The basic which is overlooked here is that cold calling is an essential tool for recognition – an ideal way to spread the word about your work. When approached and applied right, it emerges as an aid to brand recognition, in addition to being an attempt to sell/market your product.

To achieve optimum results, the caller’s line of thought needs to be set straight. Every cold caller should remember that his/her job requires more than telephone equipment and a standard call script. Every call made is an initiative to reach out to the market. A professional with a proactive nature and steadfastness has a cutting edge over his/her counterparts to excel. Accomplishment is not only based on the number of calls made but also by the number of conversions born out of every initiation put forth by the caller.

A shift in the thinking or attitude of the cold caller is the first and the most important step in achieving effective results from this tool.

The caller must remember that the job is more or less an art of convincing someone to listen to you – a someone who does not know you, has no more than two seconds for you and is just waiting to cut you off to get back to things that are more important than being held up on phone over a marketing call. And every form of art is intricate, requires focus, an eye for detail, hard work, a well-conceived strategy and a mountain of patience (yes!) before you begin to master it.

The second step to bring out the best from the cold calling activity is to understand what can be expected from the receiver of the calls.

Like it or not, a cold caller is always at the mercy of the receiver‘s time and attention. It makes sense to accept that this time or attention from the receiver may not be granted in most of the cases. It would be prudent to have reasonable expectations in addition to undiluted enthusiasm or determination. Always remain objective and never take rude replies personally. When a receiver sounds irritated, excuse yourself politely and hang up. Do not prolong the conversation in an attempt to defend your stance. A person who is not interested in your product is not going to be interested in your justifications either.

COLD CALLING IS BOLD CALLING

There are no magical hard and fact rules that can be applied to the process of cold calling that may guarantee fruitful results. However, a set of guidelines may be practiced to achieve practical success in daily work. To begin with, the caller should possess these ‘must-haves’:

• Thorough knowledge of the product/service: Know every detail down to the minutest of specification covering usage, billing, delivery, disclaimers, and so on. Remember to emphasise on the pros and prepare effective counters to defend the cons.

• Appropriate script: A clearly drafted call script with timely greetings, sufficient magic words, crisp and concise description works wonders.

• Straight-forward: Let the language used be simple, precise and comprehensible. Many times, callers are hardly understood by receivers because of super-fast delivery of the content matter, which contains terminologies that are either unknown or difficult to comprehend.

• Prioritise: Categorizing callers according to their demographics can be of great help. This will help in determining the right time of the day to make a call. For instance, a senior citizen or home-maker would detest marketing calls in the afternoon, a time of the day that is better suited to reach out to the working class that hates to be disturbed during the first half of the day.

• Play to your strengths: Let there be a stamp of your individuality while talking to a prospect; the script should not be ‘narrated’, but delivered with finesse. Work on voice modulations and, if possible, rehearse once or twice to obtain fluency. And always ensure that you get the name of your prospect pronounced right!

• Keep a record: Take notes religiously; whether it is feedback, or nature of response or a call-back comment so that you may avoid ringing up someone who just declined your offer curtly or miss a call back to a prospective customer.

• Don’t forget your manners: Never ever slip from being polite. An ideal marketing call with the right mixture of words and tones may be forgotten, but a sour one will leave a very bad impression on the brand and before you know it, a blog may begin to do the rounds!

• Knock before you enter: Always ask a caller if he/she has time to hear you out before you begin ranting. Keep a one-liner ready as a subject-line to the call. Also, listen carefully; gauge the mood of the person you are talking to before proceeding to make your proposition.

THE CALLER’S CALL

The remote to control the conversation of a marketing call lies in the hands (words) of the caller. Irrespective of the response, the caller is always capable of leaving a professional mark on his/her job done. Cold calling is the natural hunting ground for business. And the skills of the callers are weapons that the hunters depend and rely upon for their meat. A weapon that must be honed to influence, convince and attract attention. Remember, next time you make that call, try not to sell something; instead, build a conversation with that stranger. And the sales will follow!

Accounts Streamlining

What is Master Data?

In all business processes, we have entities that play a crucial role in our business. These entities are known as master data and many companies today suffer because of improper master data. So what are these ‘Masters’?

Masters are what we get when we ask, ‘With whom do we do businesses? - Our customers and suppliers; ‘With what?’ - As in what do we transact with - services and inventory and ‘Using what?’ – give us taxes and currency. These are what we call the ‘Masters’.

What do we do with Masters? We transact – sales, purchases, receipts, payments - these are the ‘Transactions’ records of the business activities we perform.

Both Masters and Transactions are defined by business practices and not by software. What is important is in the way these interactions are recorded, managed and reported upon.

Why do I need one?

Having a master is inevitable, its management is even more crucial as it is used by multiple applications. Even a single error in master data can cause errors in all the applications that use it. For example, an incorrect address in the customer master might mean orders, bills, and marketing material sent to the wrong address. Similarly, an incorrect price on an item master can be a marketing disaster, and an incorrect account head leads to wrong accounting. So with your master down, your business pretty much becomes a pack of falling cards.

Following are the Masters that should be configured properly in Accounting Package including Tally:

• Customer Master

• Vendor Master

• Payroll Master

• Value-added tax Master

• Inventory Master ( Item Master)

Let us look at Inventory Master in detail:

The main concepts of trading activities are receipt of goods and delivery of goods. We generally call them purchase or sale actions. The trading items can be raw material, finished goods, semi-finished goods etc..

For better Organisation, let’s have groups and sub-groups for classification of the trading item. You can create the inventory from this menu, which contains the following options:

1. Stock Group: Create your group here, for example, raw materials, goods etc

2. Stock Items: Create your items here, for example, TV, VCD, etc.

3. Vouchers

4. Unit of Measurement: Some examples include Ltr, M, Pcs etc.

5. Quit: Exit from the menu.

Before creating the Inventory info menu, we should know what stock groups, stock items and units of measurement are. What are Items, Groups and Units?

Stock Items and Stock Units in Tally

Stock Items: Stock items are the key inventory entities, like Ledgers In fact, you need to create a stock ledger account for each item and Tally.ERP calls this account ‘Stock Item’.

Stock Units: You can measure the Stock Item by Units such as Ltrs, M, Kgs, Pieces, Box and so on.

Item master is key for any business. If item master is not configured properly then the report and the accounting will not show the accurate details/reports of the company. Different businesses have different requirements and therefore the classification needs to be customized for your business.

With the right Item Master, you have:

• Better inventory management

• Proper analysis and decision making

• Timely replenishment

• Correct invoicing and accounting

Benefits of Proper Master Data Management

One of the core principles that your ERP works on is that the software centralizes information into a common database. Integrating and centralizing data allows companies to do away with ‘standalone information’. Consolidated data allows key decision makers to refer to a single system when it comes to business data. Integrating data also serves to promote efficiencies throughout the enterprise. For instance, by enabling sales the ability to access information about product, order schedules and purchasing, sales employees are able to handle customers better. Increasing customer satisfaction through increased operational visibility is one of the underlying goals of all ERP systems. Creating a Master is the first step in the process.

Problems due to non-configuration of Masters

Now, let’s look at the chaos that ensues when the Masters are not configured properly.

• Duplicate item codes in masters resulting in inaccurate booking or booking in multiple heads for the same item.

• Different item codes for purchases and sales means no linkage of inventory flow

• No control over the stock

• Pile-up of idle item codes

• Management not having the complete information about the customer or vendor can result in waste of time and delay in work flow.

• Usage Excel for payroll and Payslips generation, resulting in unmanageable information.

Next issue, we will share yet another important lesson in accounts streamlining. Let’s keep learning!

How to Disagree Agreeably with Your Clients

Who doesn’t hate getting caught in disagreements – the fights, the bitterness and the whole drama? Yet, who doesn’t disagree? Everyone has their views, and even the kings are questioned.

Talking of kings, they say that clients need to be treated as royalty. That may be true. But as a consultant or a vendor, you are an expert at what you do. It is up to you to raise a red flag where it is due. And although what you say has to be said, there is a disclaimer – you should pay attention to the manner in which you say it.

Consider the following scenario. You have created a solution for a difficult client problem that you are very proud of. You email it to the client expecting instant approval. Within a few minutes you receive a call from them. Thinking it is to applaud your effort, you pick the call up, but you are disappointed. The client is not happy with the solution and he recites a huge list of changes. On listening you feel as though the client has got it all wrong and not understood or even read your solution thoroughly. Without letting him complete the list, you jump right in with your views and a lecture on your decade-long experience in matter. Blah, blah, blah…

Result. The client bangs the phone down and you are left with a bigger problem in hand.

So, what went wrong?

Effective communication is the key and here is a list of tips that may help you in handling similar or more complex scenarios better.

1. Listen patiently

Listening to the client’s argument without prejudices and staying away from stating your points before you hear their whole story is a good way to begin. Many a time, in anticipation of a disagreement, people turn defensive too quickly only to realise later that they were actually on the same page!

2. Pick your point

After hearing to the argument, taking a minute or two to pick your side and building a point is wise. Rushing too quickly with your argument may get your thoughts all tangled and messy.

3. Get your emotions on check

The tone of communication is as important as the content being communicated. Your psyche and your emotions have a definite implication on your tone. Regaining your composure before putting forth your point sends a positive signal to the client.

4. Be respectful

After listening to a harsh argument ensuring that your response, attitude and manners reflect respect and courtesy befitting a king is a tough task and calls for immense self-control. Nevertheless, it is crucial and will have a calming effect on the client.

5. Embrace diplomacy

Diplomacy is not an inherent value, but a skill that needs fostering. Knowing how to put forth a differing thought without making it sound conflicting needs practice and is essential. For instance, by beginning your response with simple phrases like “That’s an interesting perspective” or “I know why you are saying that” can set off a very promising tempo.

6. Keep it factual

Instead of keeping the conversation personal, throwing in a lot of facts and making your point more credible avoids instigation and encourages the client to see your point.

7. Talk to win-win

The difference between argument and a constructive discussion is that in the former, your aim is to get your way in the end. And in the latter, you aim is to clear the air, have a fair exchange of thoughts and mutually find a way that is beneficial for both. The latter is the way to go.

8. Care to compromise

Your point may be different from that of the client, but not necessarily better. Shedding your ego and being willing to give in for the common good is a trait of humility and greatness. And it is an attitude that will be most certainly noted and appreciated by even the toughest of clients.

Now keeping these tips in mind, how could the earlier scenario have been handled better?

• By staying calm, listening to the whole list of changes and beginning with an apology.

• By assessing the client’s feedback and accepting to makes changes that are fair.

• On areas where you still feel you are right, by handling it diplomatically and presenting it to the client in a more conducive way.

This way, not only would you have managed your client well but more importantly, you would have come up with a solution that embodies the positives from your perspective as well as from that of the client. You would have successfully managed a potential havoc and turned it into a win-win.

Now, these eight tips help best with impromptu arguments that spur off without an alarm, as is the case of the above scenario. On the other hand, when invited for a scheduled challenging discussion such as with a tough client and an even tougher agenda, you could consider going more prepared. For instance, in the same scenario above if the client had scheduled a meeting to brief you on the list of changes instead of telling them over the phone, in addition to the eight tips it is useful to keep the following in mind.

• Researching and collating thoughts to create a structure as to what to talk to the client can be helpful.

• Knowing your audience and streamlining your approach and structuring how to present your thoughts in order to suit the clients’ approach/personalities is equally important.

• Rehearsing is not juvenile. In the case of very delicate or sensitive discussions, doing a role play is a good thing. This will help you see the probable reactions to the points you are to put forth and help you plan your replies accordingly.

True to the song from Mary Poppins, a spoon full of sugar does make the medicine go down in the most delightful way. By taking simple care in communicating right, even the toughest of client issues can be whisked away with ease.