Writing Using Idioms with Numbers

We use idioms to speak our mind with wit and a dash of humour to accentuate the message we intend to convey. So, let us try to use some of the idioms that use numbers in them to convey our message garnished with humour:

Have one over eight:     Someone who is tipsy due to drinking too much alcohol
At the Eleventh Hour:    Just at the final moment
Five o'clock shadow:    Someone who has not shaved and stubles appear on his face
Have Forty Winks:          Take a quick nap (sleep or rest for a short while.)

Now let us try to form a sentence using the idioms we have learnt the meaning of and listed them above.

Waiting for his project to complete successfully, Will had one over eight at the eleventh hour, so decided to have forty winks only to find five o'clock shadowing his face. 

[This means: While Will was waiting for his project to complete successfully, at the final moment he was was influenced by the alcaholic drink he had and decided to take a short nap only to find that he had slept long enough to grow beard on his face.]
So, are we ready for some more after the warm up session?

Let us take a few more idioms:

A chance in a million:           Rare and much awaited opportunity
Feel like a million dollar:      Feel extremely good
Never in a million years:     That which does not happen at all
Nine day wonder:                  Excitement lasting for a short time

For Neil Armstrong, the first man on the moon, it was a chance in a million making him feel like a million dollar, a nine day wonder that never had happened in a million years.

[This means: For Astronaut Neil Armsrtong, the first man to land on the moon, this was a rare opportunity he much waited for; he was proud of his achievement, though it was an excitement of short visit that has not happened at all.]

Let us now try to form a sentence using some of the eight idioms listed above:

At the eleventh hour the hare had forty winks making his excitement a nine day wonder giving the tortoise a chance in a million to feel like a million dollar.  

Refer to the meaning of the idioms to see what the sentence means.

Shall we have you use the following idioms to form a sentence or two:

A drop in a bucket:                                  a small part of a bigger whole(entity).                          
A penny saved is a penny earned:     saving money little by little
A picture paints a thousand words:   image impresses more than verbal description
A dime a dozen:                                       Anything that is in common

Happy time making sentence by combining one or more of the idioms to discover your creative potential!

Three Pronged Approach in CRM Projects - II

Some of the popularly used automated CRMs are SAP, SIEBEL, BAAN, ORACLE, etc.
CRM is a way for an organization to survive and prosper. This is only possible with its vision and mission translated into a road map. The organization can achieve this through realistic, strategic and tactical planning to achieve its objective in the days to come. This requires proper study of the external and internal environment including the competitors in order to draw up its ethical and value system in the form of specialization through better CRM technology support. This will improve the product or service and give the organization edge over its competitors. Eventually, the organization should concentrate on its core content with the help of its Centre For Excellence. This is where the automated CRM can go a long way in clearly defining its process, build its infrastructure to the benefit of its customers, partners, suppliers/vendors, employees forming beneficial values, thus synergizing the efforts of each entity to each others benefits.
Similarly, according to the Three Pronged Approach, the functional strategy has to be drawn on the organization’s core competency that is transformed into the organization’s ethics and Centre for Excellence, where the organization concentrates on its core competencies in relation with the internal as well as its external customers.
The Strategic functions are taken care of by the middle management and this is where the strategic functional planning is formulated,
The Tactical or the executive level planning is done by the executives in sync with the strategy and they prepare themselves for the market and the competition too.

Project Vs. Program:
As mentioned above, projects are tactical plans while Programs are strategic plans. Projects are always at a micro level and are a defined set of activities that must be completed on time and within the allocated budget; but the program are always in the form of change management giving a holistic definition of a product or service to be provided to the customers with the optimum utilization of time and resources. It also encourages innovation while maintaining harmony with external as well as internal environment. This is where complete integration of automated CRM takes place.
Projects are an essential part of a programme. The sub modules delivery should be well defined and measurable.

Program Management	Project MAnagement
Focus is on delivering benefits based on a business strategy at macro level	Focus on single objective usually tactical at micro level
An organizational and management framework (A vehicle) through which one or more projects are delivered	Focus is on delivering a single project
Focus is on delivering a single project,	Objectives are clearly defined at outset.
Can lead to organization level change management	Can lead to specific team related change management
Benefits are delivered incrementally by projects and other change vehicles during the life span of the program	Capabilities are delivered through a single undertaking and are generally delivered on completion
Main deliverable tend to be many	Main deliverables tend to be few
Strategic planning, considering external factors has larger time marginsStrategic planning, considering external factors has larger time margins	Time scale rigidly defined
A program is designed for scope changes	Scope changes are managed as exceptions (e.g. scope creep)
Programs may be inter-relatedPrograms	Sub projects are related to project outcomes and themselves.
Generally applicable to division level or at higher levels of an organization	Applicable to any level of the organization
A program can assist in prioritizing projects and activities	Projects can only prioritise activities within itself
Program support the concept of portfolio management	Time scale rigidly defined

Programs are the realistic road maps of the business strategy and its sub-modules, the projects are the tactical plans of how to deliver the goods, service. CRM plays a vital role in laying out the road map and controlling the execution of the tactical plan. Therefore, the main objective of a plan is to align the organization’s internal environment with the external environment in order to appropriately deliver what the external clients deliver from the organization.
Project management is capability based and net benefit based. It focuses on delivery and not the process, which is the crux of quality, which highlights the focus on the quality of product or service delivered and the actual benefit provided. This means that, in terms of program, an organization endeavors to align its process to match the end users’ expectations with the help of innovation and change management.
According to Three Pronged Approach, The Management responsible for overall strategic planning and the executives responsible for translating the strategic planning to water tight tactical planning should share adequate market and competitor knowledge and past experience from the point of designing or revamping the product or service to the to meet the market demand to the pricing function so that they maintain the vision and mission of the organization well aligned with the changing market trends in order to create their market niche and also effectively respond to the market competition, The organization needs to realize, they are not the market, but they are for the market.

According to the table above, the Prong One states that Management and Executives need to align themselves and the market demand and for that, the role and responsibilities of each individual should be aligned with the changing market trends and the functional objective of the organization. For instance: To beat market competition, the organization may need to make some strategic functional change resulting in challenging delivery time of the product or service to establish ones credibility in the market/ For instance, Domino Pizza promising to home deliver pizza within record half an hour. This therefore is the management focus to see how the strategic change is working to the benefit of the organization, its customers as well as its employees.

< Feature Project Program Endeavours Management focus Delivery on time Strategic Change Competitive Advantage Breadth Function boundary Across Enterprise Complete External and Internal Environment Manages Cost/risk Corporate cost/benefit Stake holder returns Scope Easily identified Evolving Shifting Justification Return on investment Competitive Initiative Survival Timeframe 3-15 months 18-36 months Many Years Leadership Motivate team Influence Enterprise Lead enterprise Change focus Reduce Ambiguity Thrive on Ambiguity Create Ambiguities Links Departments Multiple Projects Programs

The above diagrams show the proper blend between the strategic and tactical planning in terms of market the external environment and the internal environment to tactically prepare the resources in order to effectively cater to the existing market demand and establish a positive customer relationship. Starting from the client to the executive catering to the client's needs to the organization planning both on the long and short run to keep pace with the changing market trends.

Three Pronged Approach in CRM Projects I

Three Pronged Approach in CRM Projects I

Salient points of CRM Projects:

The CRM Way of doing business is by linking to customers, stakeholders, share holders, partners and suppliers through whatever channel is appropriate based on stored and applied knowledge. The organization will continue to enhance its overall relationships for continuous, competitive advantage.

According to Three Pronged Approach,  the integration between external environment, clients, shareholders, partners, vendors/suppliers (external environment) and the management, executives and the other resources (internal environment) through appropriate use of knowledge of management tools.

This means – mapping the entire scope of services and other related functions to create an established relationship with customers, stakeholders, shareholders i.e. both external and internal clients and resources. This form of solution is a holistic one, which circumvents all risks and helps to develop credibility with value based services. This can also be termed as a Macro solution, which can be further fragmented to point solutions.

Note: Point solutions are normally associated with divisional needs or needs that merely solve a particular problem without considering the needs of the whole organization and their implications regarding strategic decision.

Three Pronged Approach is a holistic approach in providing A macro and micro solution to a problem. In this approach all the divisional or functional entities are considered.

Fact: Three Pronged Approach enables a business enterprise to align its serves and products to customers’ requirements or the market demand, without trying to lure the customer through false promises highlighting false benefits, that, in reality, are of no intrinsic benefit to the customer or are core benefits, but falsely promoted as additional benefits to build customer loyalty or relationship/retention benefits for the business enterprise (organization), but  does not help in forming the credibility of the organization in the market. e.g.

·         Promote sale of products through discounts on inflated prices.

·         Promise life time service on a price that the customer may not be able to enumerate, because the definition of lifetime itself is subjective.

·         Highlight the benefits of well organized and professional sales force; in fact, it is a necessity of any business enterprise to have one and not a privilege for a customer to be served by one.

·         Event based actions and automated marketing service.

·         Personalized e-services.

·         Grandiose in infrastructure and frills.

These are mere false promises or frills in the name of CRM.

The best example of CRM gone wrong is the bursting of the DOT COM bubble. Virtual benefits proposed were unable to satisfy the expectations they had created in the minds of the customers. Therefore, all the technicalities associated with the DOT COM business initiatives could not achieve what they had envisioned to.

Following the principle of Three Pronged Approach (Organization):

CRM should not be implemented without integrating it with the vision and mission of the organization; with full knowledge of the total cost, benefits of undertaking the initiative in terms of both the internal as well as the external environment.

 

For proper implementation of CRM as part of a business process, a well defined and comprehensive roadmap of the entire process is needed. Then the CRM technology (if any CRM technical solution is being used) should be integrated to each segment or division of the process.

Implementation of CRM technology (automated CRM) in human centric process/function, such as in sales and marketing or in service sector, the existing system needs to be organized and every aspect of it should be well defined. For instance, to implement Call Centre Service as a CRM technology initiative with the business objective of turning around the figures on the dipping sales charts due to the insufficient results generated by the existing sales force, in itself will be, rather is a failed objective. Call centre cannot replace the existing sales force in executing the entire sales, marketing and market research activity. But it can complement the existing sales force and provide the following support  in helping boost up sales of the organization’s products/services: 

• Create database of prospective clients.
• Provide support in terms of data-warehousing, maintaining necessary details of the customer base.
• Help in cross-selling, when the organization has more than one product or service to offer.
• Provide first hand information for market analysis to be aware of the market trends.
• Pre-sales and post sales support to provide extra service benefit to the customers in the form of service within warranty period and this provides vital feedback on consumer opinion and sales trends, vital for market research.

Seven Principles of Effective Distance Learning or Knowledge Sharing

When designing the pedagogy for Distance Learning in any field, the technical field in particular, we need to answer two fundamental questions:
1. Pedagogy
2. Will that pedagogy work over the internet using a variety of internet based training delivery techniques?
To answer these questions, let us use "SEVEN PRINCIPLES OF DEVELOPING EFFECTIVE PEDAGOGY" by "Chickering and Gamson":

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PR#	PRINCIPLE	TECHNOLOGY AS LEVER	TOOLS FOR LEARNING & EVALUATION (EXAMPLES ONLY)
P1:	Encouragement of contact between learners and faculty. Frequent student-faculty contact in and out of the classroom is most important factor to motivate and involve the learners in the learning process.	Asynchronous means of Communication allows for greater contact between allows greater contact between faculty and learners with the varying schedules. Learner faculty contact can also be enhanced by synchronous means such as Chat Forum, Video conferencing or WebEx session.	E-mail; whiteboard; chat forum; WebEx; E-Workspace (e.g. Huddle Workspace); Twitter; Skype; etc.
P2:	Develop Reciprocity and cooperation among learners. Good learning, like good work, is collaborative in a social way and not competitive as learning now is done in isolated way	Since learners are at extensive geographical distance and time between them, so the enhanced interaction between them is possible using internet tools, television, WIFI, etc. to create a sense of community, both for intra and intra student community communication.	Chat forums; instant messaging; Skype; Yahoo Messenger; Blog sites with widgets; E-Notepad or E-Notebook; SharePoint Service viz. That of Microsoft; E-Discussion Groups; WIFI; WebEx; Free Storage sites like Picassa (for illustrations, images, visuals of related to learning projects, etc.); ScribD (to maintain documents viz. dissertation and research papers, etc.
P3:	Use Active Learning Techniques. Learning is not a spectators’ sport; therefore, it is not a competitive activity and should not be a competitive activity. Learners must discuss what they are learning, reflect upon the concept learnt, relate it to their past experience to understand how the learning can be applied in activities at present and the future in order to improve their life and concerned activities.	Learners to use tools to become more active learners. Viz. Searching the internet for more information; Use simulation games and activities available at various sites. Simulations, that can replace dangerous and expensive experiment like in the field of engineering, medicine, geology, oceanography, aviation, etc. Can be taught through simulation, which can be more interactive and therefore more effective learning procedure for the learners.	Online Edutainment games; Interactive tools found in the form of video and presentation preparation sites; video conference and V-sat sessions with the facilitators; WebEx; Television, V-Sat; Learning Management Systems (LMS); Free Case Studies sites; Free Research sites for data collection and analysis; Simulation or Avatar viz. For speech and accent learning sites
P4:	Give Prompt Feedback. Through feedback the facilitators or teachers help the learners have achieved in their objective of learning and applying the concepts or they need to focus on certain concepts or aspects of learning. It is pertinent that during the learning sessions too, learners need frequent opportunities to apply concepts learnt and receive immediate feedback on it.	Computer programmes can be used to assess the learners online and give them immediate feedback with a complete report on how effective the learning experience has been for each learner.	Skype; Yahoo Messenger; WebEx, videoconferencing; Online tutorial; quizzes, Case studies with feedback; Online assessment and self assessment tools.
P5:	Emphasize time on task. Time + Energy = Learning. Allocating realistic time lines for effective learning. This can also help both the learner and the facilitator to know whether they are progressing within the learning time schedule	Using new technologies to allow learners to learn when they are ready without having to travel or work at unusual times due to geographical and time diversities.	Facilitators need to formulate flexible and intuitive course design for the learners at different locations. Schedule should have appropriate timelines drawn according to the availability of the learners. Facilitators can use online monitoring tools such as Skype, Yahoo Messenger, WebEx or video conference for personalized approach at the time of reinforcement of learning.
P6:	Communicate high expectations. Facilitators should let the learners be aware of what they expect the learner to achieve at the end of a learning session (The learning objective)	Many Learners are motivated to learn more effectively, when they will they are appreciated by the facilitators and that their learning in the form of a report, case study, and research paper will be recognized and published. It becomes the facilitator’s or the teacher’s responsibility to remove any mind block that the learner may experience due to the fact that other learners to be aware of how much and how well the learner has progressed on the learning roadmap. Facilitators also need to see that the learners do not set too high a learning goal for themselves to impress other learners. Facilitators have to reiterate regularly that it is collaborative form of learning and not a competitive one.	Online web tools for training content creation (Creation of LMS); Skype; Yahoo Messenger; Group-Discussions through forums as in LinkedIn; Publishing in Blogs, SharePoint, etc; use of Wiki etc. WebEx, video-conferencing, V-Sat facilities, etc.
P7:	Respect diverse talent and ways of learning. Many roads may lead to learning the same concept. Different learners bring different talents and patterns of learning. Therefore, learners should not be compelled one specific pattern of learning, instead, should be given opportunity to show their way of learning and the facilitator should document the different patterns of learning used by the learners.	New technologies can provide learners with multiple ways of learning a concept and they should have the freedom to pick the one that suits them. This will bring more flexibility in learning a concept and enable the learner learn within the time-schedule.	”Personalisable” online environment such as provided by LMS, Moodle, E-Workspace such as Huddle Workspace; are a small variety of content media that provide interactive means of learning with learners choosing his/her way of learning a concept. [NOTE: There is tremendous scope of coming up with a Complementary Learning Portal supporting learning any skill from elementary to professional level in viz. BFSI, Retail, IT, ITES domains

Creative Problem Solving: Coping With Blocks

1. Creative problem solving is the other name for innovation. We usually use the term “Innovation” for any technical solution to a problem or issues we may face. The fact is, any simple solution we arrive at to cope with any difficult situation is an innovative step we take to do so.
   When we need to decide on a course of action to solve a problem, we may work out a process, which may not give satisfactory result or may prove to be very expensive. The very fear of failing to effectively solve a problem prevents us from trying to solve it creatively. We can overcome this first hurdle to solving a problem by “Properly Processing Given Information”.
   Step One: Try to understand the information available in the form of “Raw Data” and identify the “Problem”. For instance: The Report card of a student or the balance sheet of an organization is the “Raw Data” The unsatisfactory marks/grades scored by the student or the losses incurred by the organization is the “Problem”.
   Step Two: Understand the in terms of the “Goal”. For instance: the student’s goal is to clear the exam and the goal of the organization is to generate revenue (earn more than the functional expenses incurred). Then find out the reasons where and why one has deviated from achieving ones functional objective/goal. For instance: the student, in earnest, can find out by how much he was unable to achieve the score/grade. The organization, through internal audit process can gain the needed information.
   Step Three: More information can be drawn from past experience, available in the form of memory and past data, on the processes applied to achieve similar goals in the past. Use the collected information through present and previous experience to analyse the difference and similarity with the present problem to arrive at a solution. For instance: The student can recall the satisfactory marks scored in previous exams and how he was able to do so, and what were the causes of his present failure. He can then analyze the information to find his strength and weakness, which can help him to solve the problem. The organization: through past reports and auditing conventions can also analyze the past and present data to find a solution for the present problem.
   This step-by-step method of using given data to identify the problem and find a solution is “Programming”. This problem solving model is called “Newell and Simon Model” This is successful only when:
   Accurate Raw Data.
   Problem is identified properly.
   The solution method is defined clearly.
   Barriers in Creative Problem Solving are:
   1. Mind-set: The other term used to describe it is “functional fixedness”. This usually occurs when one, who is tuned in to an existing system is unable to work out of it. This also makes the person to solve any new type of problem. For instance, for a long time, computer was considered to be a calculator and presently, many people are unable to appreciate the diverse functions of mobile phone. This is often attributed to “Negative Thinking”. Destructive (Negative) criticism is the biggest hindrance to creative problem solving and the common example is in the form of parents and teachers, through negative criticism, hinder the imaginative minds of children to cultivate the process and habit of creative problem solving.
   2. For an Individual:
   2.1. Cultural Blocks: Influence and pressure of society in the form of social customs and value systems.
   2.2. Emotional Blocks: fear, anxiety, jealousy, etc.
   2.3. Intellectual and expressive blocks: Vertical thinking or thinking in terms of “One Right Answer”; Personal beliefs and value systems; Improper sense of perception; improper self-image.
   3. For an organization:
   3.1. Lack of Resources and Management Support to try out new ideas. The biggest indicator of this is that floating or underutilized manpower is an anathema for the management of such an organization. Such organization is unable to afford “Slack” in its System, for it believes in “Task Force”.
   3.2. Bureaucracy and Red Tape: it prevents functional flexibility and prevents innovation.
   3.3. Functional Myopic Thinking: Thinking only on the lines of production, marketing, work force and finance. The organization ignores its objective of customer satisfaction, therefore ignores the relevance of understanding what customer needs and then innovate to find a creative solution for it.
   3.4. Fear of Criticism: therefore, do not put forward their ideas.
   3.5. Resistance to Change: due to aversion to change in working habits, new systems.
   3.6. Fear of Taking Risk (Job or Career may be at stake): financial loss and fear of entrapment.
   3.7. Tendency to conform: fear of fall-out with the members of the work-group.
   3.8. Emphasis on Managerial Control: Rigid financial control expects quick and financially measurable results, thus hindering any innovative activities.
   3.9. Ideas are often analysed under microscope: in order to avoid financial and other related risks.
   3.10.Rigid Hierarchical Structure:
   3.11. Tendency for one large successful breakthrough rather than many small success stories.
   
   How to Develop Climate for Creativity and Innovation in an Organization
   1. People
   1.1. People should be encouraged to take risk in their work by defining the limit of risk they can take.
   1.2. Creating and Encouraging Innovative environment is Management’s Responsibility: The management can do this by providing a given level of functional autonomy and risk taking behaviour within the organization.
   1.3. Management Should Respond Positively to New Ideas: Should not resist innovation fearing change in status quo. Should ignore personal benefits for larger benefits of the organization as the latter benefit is bound to be mutual.
   1.4. Generating Creative Ideas Requires Freedom of Thought ~ Some Degree of Autonomy: more functional autonomy develops sense of responsibility and creative thinking to problem solving.
   1.5. Motivating Innovation through Reward and Recognition
   1.6. Provide Adequate Financial Resources for Innovation
   1.7. Create a Spirit of Teamwork: Free and informal interaction, encouraging the members to identify individual functional goals with organizational goals. This can help in free sharing of thoughts and ideas and light-hearted competition to motivate creative thinking.
   1.8. Exposure of Employees to Outside Ideas: Free sharing of ideas within the organization through internal bulletins and newsletters and also through events and activities such as workshops, seminars and lectures and journal subscriptions for exposure external ideas.
   1.9. Conduct Problem-solving Retreats: To go away from place of work to a different environment to ideate together to find solution to a problem.
   2. Process
   2.1. A Continual Flow of Idea is Required
   2.2. Review or Revise Suggestion Schemes
   2.3. Establish an Innovation Council
   2.4. Provide Time for “Pet” Projects
   3. Structure
   3.1. Differentiate the Structure: Structurally, Organization should be flexible enough to respond to the changes in the External Environment. It should have well-defined cross-departmental interfaces with adequate scope to integrate in response to structural changes.
   3.2. Encourage Different Viewpoints: This can help in getting different perspectives of a problem and eventually encourage creative thinking to find an appropriate solution considering the different functional entities within the organization.
   3.3. Establish Creativity Rooms Containing Books and Idea-generating Aids
   3.4. Proper interface between R&D and Marketing: This will help the organization to find accurate solution in the form of a proper product or service to satisfy the customer base.
   3.5. Encourage Cross-Training with well developed Learning and Development Support: More the people will understand different aspects of the functions within the organization; it will improve their ability to comprehend the problem and find its fool-proof solution.

Acknowledgement: The Essence of Management Creativity (by: Tony Procter)

Suggestions to...

...Teachers and Parents

• Positive attitude in life can help you help the learners overcome life's hurdles.
• Simplicity in thought and action can help the learners to accept life easily and without any complications.
• Patience with oneself, will help to patiently help the learner acquire the knowledge and experience to solve problems.
• Understand yourself in terms of your interest, strengths and weakness and your own expectations. Then, it will be easy to understand the learners' expectations too and help them in aligning their aspirations to their capabilities.
• Have a free mind and heart, sans all worries. By thinking and imagining like a child, indulging in childish fantasies like crying out loud, singing and laughing loudly, climbing trees, making paper planes and boats so that you can help the learner unleash his/her imagination and show inclination to innovate and invent.
• Introspection will help you to understand yourself, consequently help you to help the learners understand themselves and others too.
• Humility or ego management is key that requires balance of mind and heart. This helps the aggressive or passive nature transform into assertive and optimistic one.
• Plan all activities in advance so that you can help the learners also to do so and be proactive rather than reactive.
• Learning by doing is an example you can set to the learner by being honest enough accept that you do not know the answer to a question posed by the learners and make it a point to find the answer and inform the learners.
• It is important to make learners know that unlearning is as important as learning in terms of transient nature of life. Do discuss any misconceptions or wrong information and help find out or realize the required information/knowledge.
• Maintain transparency in your relationship with the learners. Openly discuss the subjects like crime, guilt, sex and human nature with the learner and educate the learners to have a positive approach to life. It is a fact that human mind remains preoccupied with thoughts of all that it is overtly restrained from dealing with. This can affect the learners' progress and wellbeing too.
• Through self-discipline and mild manners, we can encourage the learners to practice all this in their lives too.
• Do not maintain a stiff and authoritative relationship with the learners. Allow them to freely discuss their thoughts and point-of-view with you. so that you can help them to organize their thoughts and knowledge assimilated through any formal or informal learning process or any personal experience.
• Do not discriminate between your learners. Treat all of them equally while making them aware of their unique qualities and traits that can help in their growth and development.
• All this will help the learners to easily pave the way of their own life.

...Boss

• The adage, distance creates love is true in informal relationship, but in formal relationship that of superior and subordinate, it only breeds contempt. Cordial and empathetic relationship helps to maintain harmony at workplace.
• Respond to sweet or diplomatic wedges and spikes of the subordinate by reminding the latter of the purpose of his/her being part of the organization is to identify with the organization and the given responsibilities.
• During face-to-face interaction, have the subordinate seated in front of you at same level of eye contact, even when you need to discuss issues where you need to accept your mistake or vice versa.
• Avoid eating or drinking while conversing with your subordinate or, offer it to the latter.
• After harsh altercation, make it a point to discuss it amicably with the subordinate to unanimously resolve the issue.
• Keep tab of your subordinate's interests and family too. Show interest in his/her overall wellbeing and progress.
• Know your subordinate's strengths and weakness too. Do not use them for your own vested interest, but to help the latter to develop and progress on his/her career path.
• Do not impose functional goals on your subordinate, jointly set realistic goals and dissuade your subordinate from setting inflated goals just to please and impress you.
• Discuss a project/ assignment and how the subordinate intends to work on it. Hand over the project only if you find the latter to be confident and comfortable taking care of it. Initially guide your subordinate in starting the project and keep tab on its progress through regular updates. Do not ignore it, only to take ownership of its success and blame your subordinate in case it fails.
• Maintain proper and regular channel of communication, (both verbal and written) with your subordinate., so that the latter knows that you are aware and are interested to know of his/her work progress.
• Maintain complete transparency in your relationship with your subordinate so that the latter is aware of his/her role and responsibilities and appreciates the fact that his/her performance appraisal is inter-related with that of yours in terms of the organization's goals and objectives.
• Help your subordinate in planning and even participate in his/her learning plans to achieve his/her professional and personal goals.
• Avoid communicating with your subordinate in innuendos and maintain clarity in your conversation. Your subordinate should not believe that you believe more in information received through office grape-vine (unofficial channels of communication) than direct communication. This will help in avoiding any work-related stress and unpleasant situations in work place.
• Rules and regulations are to facilitate smooth and harmonious operation of the organization's activities. They are not for misuse such as encouraging the abider to break them by challenging them to do so, by constantly intimidating them of dire consequences, if they break the rules. You may encourage your subordinate to misuse them and challenge him/her to disrespect them, if you constantly intimidate the latter of dire consequences if he/she does not abide by the rules. Both you and your subordinate should be aware of the consequences of any deviation from work objective. Remind your subordinate, whenever you find him/her deviating from work objective.
• Do not make your subordinate run your personal errands for you.
• Do not discriminate between your subordinates. Treat all of them equally while making them aware of their unique qualities and traits that can help in their growth and development.
• Respect your subordinate and do not command respect from the latter.

Basics of Career & Solution Based Counseling

Counseling generally involves two individuals. The Counselor: the one provides the ability to understand viz. an issue or a set objective to help develop the ability to decide on the ways and means to achieve an objective. The Counseled: the one who is facilitated by the Counselor to clearly understand the way to resolve issues and difficulties faced and find out the ways to achieve ones goal or objective.

Our focus is generally on issues such as career exploration, career change, personal career development and other career or livelihood related issues. Typically when people come for career or employment related counseling they know exactly what they want to get out of the process, but are unsure about how it will work

Let us now focus on the two basic forms of counseling that are effective for the prospective trainees as well as the trainees we interact with while explaining to them the various Livelihood Training programme that will be appropriate for them. At times, while training them on specific skill sets under Livelihood Training Programmes, we need to counsel them on how to remain focused on their training objective. We too need to counsel the team members to meet the common functional objective of the team.

(A) Career Counseling:

This is useful while counseling candidates from educational institutions or those who seem quite aware and are trying to develop their career or striving for appropriate means of livelihood.

Career counselors work with people from all walks of life such as adolescents trying to explore career options or with experienced professionals looking for a career change. Career counselors typically have a background in psychology, vocational psychology, or industrial/organizational psychology.

Each and every counselor has his/her unique way of counseling, but generally they generally use one or more ways to find out the interest, ability and aptitude of those they are helping in deciding on career options or appropriate means of livelihood. These assessments typically include: interest inventories, cognitive ability tests to find out the level of formal education i.e. school, pre-university, college or other levels of formal education, and personality assessments i.e. self assessment or behavioral traits such as integrity, Kindness, responsibility, determination, team work, etc.

Interest Inventories:

An interest inventory is a self assessment tool, used in career planning, that assesses one's likes and dislikes of a variety of activities, objects, and types of persons; the premise is that people in the same career (and satisfied in that career) have similar interests.
Examples:
· Ramana, who is aspiring to be a sales executive has listed his hobbies as making friends, traveling, learning languages, etc and the successful sales professionals have similar interests and their job description mentions that they need to get new clients and develop good client relationship. They need to travel to meet clients and make business deals with people who are located in distant places.
· Reshmi, who is a young Indian village girl, but is very shy by nature yet wants to work in the BPO industry has a very good voice and likes to sing, can play the harmonium and easily works on its keys and is good in accounting work; therefore shows all the interest and potential to be groomed into a successful Executive in BPO industry

Career counseling basically consists of four elements:
(a) Helping individuals to gain greater self-awareness in areas such as interests, values, abilities, and personality style.
(b) Helping individuals to gain opportunity awareness by connecting individuals to resources so that they can become more knowledgeable about jobs and occupations.
(c) Through job search engaging students in the decision-making process in order that they can choose a career path that is well suited to their own interests, values, abilities and personality style, and
(d) Through self-assessment assist individuals to be active managers of their career paths (including managing career transitions and balancing various life roles) as well as becoming lifelong learners in the sense of professional development over the lifespan.

Following is the detailed Checklist of the four basic steps of Career Counseling activity:

Checklist of Career Counseling Steps

The Checklist

Self-awareness:

1. What are my values?
2. What are my skills and abilities?
3. What are my interests?
4. What is my personality style?
5. What other life roles are important along with my job or occupation?
6. What are the family and cultural influences on my career path?

Opportunity-awareness:

1. What kinds of occupations and jobs am I suited for?
2. How much do I know about these different fields (job description, amount of pay, working conditions, opportunity for advancement, whether there is a demand for this field, the types of tasks performed, etc.)?
3. What are my options (possibilities: further study/training, work shadowing/ work experience/ volunteer work as a stepping stone towards long-term employment)?
4. What are my short-term and long-term goals?
5. How do I make decisions about these options?
6. Provide all necessary information on options available as professional training programmes that can help the individual to avail livelihood opportunities available according to his/her interest and aptitude.

Job search (How to prepare oneself for it):

Explain to the individual how Professional Training Programme will help him/her:

1. How do I prepare my resume and Job Application letter?
2. What do I need to know about attending a job interview?
3. How to search for employment opportunities? Contact potential employers to provide employment opportunities after the individual completes the professional training programme.
4. How to prepare oneself for career in the chosen industry’s specific domains viz. Customer Service in Retail industry.
Self Assessment
Self assessment is an important step in career planning process. It is the process of gathering information about oneself in order to make an informed career decision and plan and progress on the career path by regularly updating thus information. A self assessment should include a look at the following: values, interests, personality, and skills.

When you are able to clarify your own interests, values and skills then you can understand better about jobs/ careers which are a good match for you and those which are not. When you are well-matched to the career/ job you are likely to be more motivated and successful in your work, and would enjoy the job more than the person who is poorly suited for the same. That is why self awareness is so critical for successful career counseling.

An effective counselor helps a job aspirant in Self Assessment and guides the individual to Appropriate Livelihood (related Skill) Development Training Programme, if necessary, while enabling the individual to plan his/her career.

Individual Character Awareness is very important and Interest Inventory also has six basic character traits:
1. Kindness
2. Integrity
3. Community Existence
4. Determination
5. Responsibility
6. Respect
Based in part on the “Six Pillars of Character,” these traits are seen as cornerstones of good character and are necessary for social progress—regardless of one’s religious beliefs or cultural background. The Character Development Scale (CDS) allows individuals to explore their character development by rating how well actions and attributes tied to these six traits apply to them and this helps in their career development and advancement too.

(B) Solution Based Counseling:

This is useful while counseling candidates from slums, villages and other rural areas.

The counselor uses respectful curiosity to invite the candidate to envision their preferred future and then counselor and candidate start attending to any moves towards it whether these are small increments or large changes. To support this, questions are asked about the candidate’s story, strengths and resources, and about exceptions to the problem, seeking employment or means of livelihood.
Solution focused counselor believes that change is constant. By helping people identify the things that they wish to have change in their life and also to attend to those things that are currently happening that they wish to continue happening, Counselor helps the candidate form a concrete vision of a happy future for themselves through self development and livelihood opportunity available through various Livelihood/Career Development Programmes. The counselor then helps the candidate to identify an appropriate livelihood programme that will help to progress towards the desired future. Through many success stories of candidates with similar profile who have succeeded in charting the course for their life. Get such candidates to share their success stories with the job aspirants as that will boost latter’s hope and confidence. Through this exercise, the counselor can motivate the job aspirants to overcome their failures and help them plan and move towards their goal. In this way, the counselor helps the candidate devise methods to analyse the problems they face and draw up a solution to overcome them. Thus counselor helps the candidates move towards the preferred future they have identified.
Solution focused counseling can be seen as a way of working that focuses exclusively or predominantly at two things:
1) Supporting people to explore their preferred futures.
2) Exploring when, where, with whom and how pieces of that preferred future are already happening.

Coping Questions
Coping questions are designed to elicit information about candidate's available resources that will help the candidate to decide on the livelihood/career along with the required training programme(s) and how to organize finances for executing his/her career plans. Counselor should help the candidate to organize and cope with the available resources to avail to help the candidate develop required knowledge/skill specific to the chosen profession. "It is really nice to see how you are coping with your existing resources to travel from your village to come and meet me. Let me help you see how you can work out your joining one of the Livelihood programmes and in successfully getting a job at the end of it!"
Genuine curiosity and admiration can help to highlight strengths without appearing to contradict the candidate's view of reality. The initial summary "I can see that things have been really difficult for you" is for them true and validates their story. The second part "you manage to join the programme.", is also a true, but one that counters the problem focused narrative. Undeniably, they cope and coping questions start to gently and supportively challenge the objections raised by a candidate to joining a livelihood programme.
Problem Free Talk
Problem free talk is often over looked as a technique. In Solution focused counseling, it is thought to be a useful technique for eliciting resources. Many people do leisure activities that relax them, or have experiences of being assertive, and many other useful resources that can help. The counselor can also gather information on the candidate`s values and beliefs and their strengths. From this discussion during the counseling session the counselor can use these strengths and resources to help the candidate decide and confirm his/her joining appropriate livelihood programme. For example; if a candidate finds it difficult to convince his/her parent or is not free with parents to take their consent to join the programme then get a meeting with the parents organized through the candidate.

Checklist of Support and Materials needed during Counseling
1. Venue in the form of a comfortable place where two people can comfortably sit and talk to each other.
2. A note pad and a writing pen for the counselor to take notes while speaking to the candidate
3. Drinking water
4. Adequate fresh air and light
5. Information Materials on various career options available.
6. Information on financial assistance available to meet the professional training/education expenses.
7. Materials for Aptitude test or such assessments.
8. Information on the Industry Clients and domains and career opportunities in them.
9. Counseling log book to maintain candidate wise records for case studies.

Important
· It is important to counsel that parents and guardians of the candidates when counseling the candidates to various livelihood programmes Counsel the parents during the mid-term assessment of the trainees.
· Counsel the parents on how they can participate in the process of their child’s career planning & development.