Common Mistakes in Recruiting a diverse workforce

Managers and team leads understand the need for creating a diverse workforce. Unfortunately, most managers make two common mistakes in recruiting for multicultural teams.

Mistake-1: Creating a token Diversity

Managers often feel the need to increase their diversity, but often tend to ignore it and hire people who have more in common with themselves, i.e., a Caucasian manager tends to hire only Caucasians, Indian manager tends to hire Indians from his local state etc. In the process, the organization becomes lopsided to a very great degree, and then managers wake up to the fact that they need to increase diversity in the organization. This late realization results in creating a token candidates - who are hired primarily to show that they are creating/encouraging diversity.

My wife once went for a job interview, the interviewer was not serious, instead of doing a due diligence through the interview process, he confessed that ‘he had to hire’ a woman for the job! And he has been instructed by the CEO to hire at least one woman in the team. Obviously my wife rejected the offer. This example shows how damaging the concept of "Token Diversity" can be. In an other example in the US, a manager had to hire a ‘black’ (or African-American) engineer - and once the person was hired, the manager did not have faith on him and never gave a serious task to the "Token" candidate. (needless to say that the person left the organization in few months)

Most managers often consider only the visible dimensions of diversity: i.e., gender, race and sometimes religion. This narrow view results in creating a few "token candidates" in the organization. This act actually is more damaging to the organization, as it creates tensions in the organization.

Other team members will be reluctant to say anything - for the fear of being seen as racist or discriminatory. The "token" diversity employee feels alienated and unwanted in the organization - and fails to contribute effectively to the organization. Thus having a small number of diversity workforce is actually more damaging to an organization and offers little or no value to the team in terms of new ideas, creativity and innovation.

Mistake-2: Diversity by Numbers

Organizations which realize that they are having too little diversity - then proceed to do the second mistake. This usually follows with a directive from the executive offices or the board to increase the diversity within the organization. So the managers respond to this order by hiring only diversity candidates - and this will be mostly for low skilled jobs, or in some cases in their own teams. The hiring standards are often changed to accommodate diversity candidates - this effectively destroys the productivity of the teams.

In case if diversity candidates are hired only for low skilled jobs, then a certain section of the organization will feel alienated - e.g., low end manufacturing employees - that they create problems to the organization. Also other qualified employees feel let down by the management when they promote/hire diversity candidate for the sake of showing numbers. This destroys the team morale and has a long term damaging effect on the organization.

Closing Thoughts

To be a successful business in today's multicultural business environment, managers need to create a sense of inclusion where people feel valued and integrated into a company’s mission, vision and business strategy at all levels irrespective of their diversity backgrounds. Once a person is hired, their contribution must be recognized in terms of work rather than their background.

When employee’s skills and knowledge are recognized, appreciated and utilized, they are more engaged in contributing to an organization’s success. Employees are more willing to go the ‘extra mile’ and share ideas and innovation. They spread the word that your organization is a great place to work. This enthusiasm rubs on others and it will attract more talented people to the new jobs - who can bring new ideas and diverse ways of thinking, solving problems and expanding market share.

Also See:

Leadership & Diversity
Building a Diverse Workforce
Soft Skills For Global Managers
Managing Diversity for High Performance
Encourage Diversity to attract top talent
Distinguish Yourself As a Culturally Diverse Candidate

Making Multicultural Virtual Teams Work

If I ask any manager, project lead or team lead, they all agree that teamwork creates wonders for any organization. Yet, most of these managers struggle everyday to make their team work together. In an global IT services delivery model, teams often consists of muti-cultural, multinational individuals who are separated by huge distances - leading to creation of multicultural virtual teams.

In my previous articles, I have written about the benefits of diversity in teams, I have written on how to make virtual teams work, how improving communication between team members enhances work productivity , managing workforce diversity etc.

In my career, I have always worked in a multicultural, multiethnic, virtual teams. Making these team work cohesively and motivating the team for high performance is always a challenge. Recently, at my workplace, I heard several team managers complaining about performance issues in their teams. These problems were exactly the same ones I saw in Silicon valley a decade ago, and these still persists even today in several organizations. This prompted me to write this article.

The Challenge

Today, IT services companies work in an offshore-onsite model, where a part of the team works from India, while another part works at the customer premises - often in US or Europe, and another part of the team consists of members from the customer organization. In addition, members from the customer organization often consists of virtual teams. As a result, the team members never see other members even once. The challenge for managers is to figure out how to make one virtual team work effectively with another virtual team.

In addition, there are several political/personal compulsions driving each segments of the team. For example, team in India will be driven towards local organizational objectives - such as resource utilization, training & skill improvement etc., while the team members in US is driven towards customer satisfaction, members from the customer organization are driven towards productivity gains and financial gains. These objectives can easily become opposing objectives if not managed properly. Thus the first challenge for the manager is to understand the objectives, motivating factors, and drivers of each segment of the team.

First Symptom of the Problem

Last week, I met Mr. Murugan (names changed) who was leading a large database program. He was frustrated with the internal problems of the team, as a result the team had lots of problems internally to deliver the results. Internal problems has driven several members of his team to quit their jobs. The resulting attrition in the team made customer( Mr. Braker) anxious. Braker was an IT manager at a leading British Telecom company, and he was forcing Murugan to make a firm commitment on the delivery. Murugan knew that he could not deliver the project to the customer in face of recent attrition, so he forced the remaining members of his team to work longer and harder - and even without taking weekends off. The increased workloads on the remaining members of team made more members quit. At this point it became clear that this project was doomed.

The problem facing Murugan and Braker was that their team was split across five geographic locations and there was poor coordination between members at different locations. Different members of the team were driven by different factors and worked to achieve different objectives. One section of his team in Kolkotta were working towards increasing their skill sets and team size - thus they were focused on hiring and training. Team members in Pune and Mumbai were driven by profitability and resource utilization, so the team size was reduced to a sub-optimal level. Team in London was driven by customer satisfaction - and their eagerness to please the customer, they volunteered to do some extra work. Members from the customer side, i.e., Braker’s team members in Leeds & London wanted to present a good picture to their management - so they started increasing the scope the project. All this created a potent mix - which was impossible to manage by Murugan.

Managing Multiple Virtual Teams is Tough

Managing multiple virtual teams requires different management & leadership skills. Managers need to have a global mindset, leadership skills with a global perspective, and ability to communicate across cultures. Murugan’s team worked in groups, but these groups were unable to work as a team. Individual team leaders were very effective in running their operations, but often failed to see the big picture. In addition, neither the team leads nor Murugan had the individual skills or expertise to develop a global organization. Added to this, the customer organization was also widely distributed and their leaders lacked the skills needed to manage a global project - instead the customer management team treated this project like an outsourced project that would be delivered by the on-site team.

Solution lies in Organization Development

After analyzing the situation, the first response was to conduct management development program to train all the managers and team leads - focusing on the skills for managerial effectiveness. But I know that would not be enough. This approach would inevitably fail. The better approach would be develop a organizational development process which will create managers who can foster a global work teams across organizations. The process should create teams what can effectively solve complex cross-cultural, cross-organizational problems, make balanced decisions, and inculcate among team members creativity and commitment towards organizational goals. And that will enable the organization to achieve excellence through high performing multicultual virtual teams.

Creating a global team

Organization development starts with creating a great team. Team formation has a great impact on the workings of a global multicultural virtual teams. Team leader must know the strengths and weaknesses of its members and seeks to capitalize on each member’s strengths. The onus of selecting the team members falls on the shoulders of team leaders. Team leaders must be personally involved in the team creating efforts. The success of a team (and hence the project) heavily depends on how this team is formed.

Building high performing teams involves identification, initiation, motivation, inspiration and consolidation of diverse team members. Of course integrating different members from different cultural back grounds is bound to have difficult challenges, making the task of building a perfect high performing team is a an enormous task.

The next challenge is to foster effective communication between teams. (See: Improved Cross-cultural Communication Increases Productivity)

However improved tools of communication like Intranet, Internet, telephones, e-mail, use of web based collaboration tools, VoIP etc., have made the task of forging relationship between multiple teams a bit easier.

Forging relationships

The first step in building a virtual team is to forge relationships and establish strong communication between members and between teams. These high performing teams shall have a definite purpose with clear cut challenging goals and strategies for achieving goals and role clarity. Members should feel a personal and collective sense of power, have access to necessary skills and resources. The organization's policies and practices shall support team objectives. Members must have mutual respect and willingness to help each other. Team members must be empowered to take appropriate actions as needed.

High performing teams need a lot more motivation. Members need to motivate each other through recognition and rewards. Team leads and Managers have to be empowered to reward team members as appropriate. Team must celebrate successes. In Intel, team members were empowered to give instantaneous awards, group recognition awards and project recognition awards to fellow team members.

The high performing teams will recognize and appreciate contributions of individual members. Similarly team accomplishments will be recognized by members. Members have mutual respect and the organization should recognize the team contributions. The members of high performing teams feel good about their membership of the team, confident, motivated, having a sense of pride and satisfaction about their achievements resulting in a strong sense of cohesion and team spirit. The above characteristics of high performing teams result in high output, excellent quality, effective decision making and clear problem solving process.

more to come....

Types of Intellectual Property

I had written few articles on protecting intellectual property. WTO recognizes 14 types of IP, But from a common legal standpoint, US courts recognize only four types of IP. Intellectual property must be registered in one of these four categories to claim legal protection.
Even to claim protection, companies must correctly register their IP with the state and federal authorities first. If a company’s IP are infringed upon, the company must then file a complaint with the state or federal courts to prosecute the offenders.

The four legally protected categories of IP are:

• Patents
  
  Inventions has to be registered with the government and these are called patents. A patent registration process can take more than one year, and if it is granted, the inventor gains the legal right to exclude anyone else from manufacturing or marketing it. Patents cover tangible and intangible things. Today it is prudent to register patents in foreign countries also. This will help prevent international competitors from infringing on patent in other countries. Patents have a definite life span. Once it is registered, the legal protection for a patent lasts for only 20 years. After which the patent becomes a public property.
  
  
• Trademarks
  
  A trademark is a name, phrase, sound or symbol used in association with services or products. It often connects a brand with a level of quality on which companies build a reputation. Trademark protection lasts for 10 years after registration and, like patents, can be renewed. But trademarks don't have to be registered. If a company creates a symbol or name it wishes to use exclusively, it can simply attach the TM symbol. This effectively marks the territory and gives the company room to prosecute if other companies attempt to use the same symbol for their own purposes.
  
  
• Copyrights
  
  Copyright laws protect written or artistic expressions fixed in a tangible medium - novels, poems, songs or movies. A copyright protects the expression of an idea, but not the idea itself. The owner of a copyrighted work has the right to reproduce it, to make derivative works from it (such as a movie based on a book), or to sell, perform or display the work to the public. You don't need to register your material to hold a copyright, but registration is a prerequisite if you decide to sue for copyright infringement. A copyright lasts for the life of the author plus another 50 years.
  
  
• Trade secrets
  
  A formula, pattern, device or compilation of data that grants the user an advantage over competitors is a trade secret. It is covered by state, rather than federal, law. To protect the secret, a business must prove that it adds value to the company - that it is, in fact, a secret - and that appropriate measures have been taken within the company to safeguard the secret, such as restricting knowledge to a select handful of executives. Coca-Cola, for example, has managed to keep its formula under wraps for more than 117 years.

Closing Thoughts

Legal means to protect an IP is complex. It is best to retain an IP lawyer who takes care of registering IP and provides continuos advice on protecting it. Companies in emerging economies have to invest seriously to develop a process and means to protect their IP. Indian & Chinese companies have to play catch-up with the US & EU companies when it comes to protecting their IP.

Also see:

Protecting IP Assets of an Organization
Creating a Culture for Innovation and Protecting Intellectual Property - Part 1
Creating a Culture for Innovation and Protecting Intellectual Property - Part 2

Employees as Brand Ambassadors

In my earlier article on Unappointed Brand Ambassadors, I had writen about how people who are external to the company act as Brand Ambassadors and how they affect the company brand value.

In a service organization - like the one I am working right now, the biggest brand ambassadors are employees who interact with customers on day-to-day basis. The common trade term for these people is "On-site Employees". Brand building via front-end employees has been a widely discussed subject. There are a great deal of books on Brand building. A New Brand World: Eight Principles for Achieving Brand Leadership in the Twenty-First Century by Scott Bedbury is my personal recommendation.

In this article I want to share my thoughts as a marketer. I think that in a services firm, a brand value is not a measure of how the marketing team wants to present the company but as actually consumers perceive it via their interaction with the employees of the service providers.

Especially for falling brands - nobody in the marketing teams of these companies implied to damage the brand. If a company experiences tough times, it is easy to blame the management but not always trivial to suggest a breaking out solution. However, the brand image is not always undermined by the lack of money. At least not always by money invested in tangible assets. Company culture, especially culture of company ambassadors, is the most influencing factor for the brand image.

Employees are the main Brand Ambassadors

Every employee in a company should understand, believe, and know that servicing customers and building positive perception is the most important factor gaining new or retaining existing customers - not a price of the product or service. The customers already have picked up the company when they compared prices and quality or analyzed other "dry" conditions of the deal. Even if they're still evaluating all this factors an average employee can't make many changes here. What he/she can still change to better or worse is its perception. Perception will remain with the customer or the prospect regardless of the momentary decision of getting the service or product.

Customer perception is something that ultimately defines the role of their recommendation - positive or negative - it's very discrete and rarely neutral. A phenomenon here is that the customers answer the recommendation question instantly but for the company it takes years to shape that image.

I believe that to build a positive image; an image for a company, It must take care for its customers. This is possible only when customer care is declared in its mission and the employees are well aware of its importance and well rewarded for extra steps and initiatives they undertake to pursue the mission. I'm sure in many cases it's not a question of additional money but additional steps that can be only invented by employees.

In case of Indian IT services companies, on-site employees have to play the role of company ambassadors. These employees must be presentable to the cutomer, have excepetionally good communication skills and importantly must have a service mentality. I encourage these on-site engineers to ask questions and understand the customer's intentions and objectives before starting full time on the project. Understanding customer's objectives will help the company do a better job, recommend superior solutions, avoid costly mistakes and win customer's loyality.

The following are a few examples what I've personally met in recent times.

Lufthansa senators (the highest frequent flier status) flying even in an economy are greeted by the chief attendant and thanked for flying Lufthansa personally. Of course, it's part of the policy but it costs to Lufthansa almost nothing and adds to the image of personal attention a lot. Why Delta doesn't do it to its platinum flyers?

Clerks at Marriott after checking-in go out of the stand, approach the guest, and hand the key personally, explaining locations the hotel services. 10 minutes later they give a call to the room offering additional help. Again, a small extra step to demonstrate the care that costs nothing but makes the customer feel special.

Delta customer service are usually very kind and willing to help. If the requested flight is not available they'll try to offer you so many options taking into account your needs that you'll feel not comfortable after a while of keeping them on line so long and not taking anything. If you call the service and it doesn't happen to you simply try another one - it's not part of the instructions but 90% of the agents do it as part of their job. Isn't it strange that Delta customer service has such a good name but Delta itself is in trouble?

A travel agency answered a ticket price question (asked via e-mail) formally correct - by providing the price. It didn't mention that there are no seats available for the requested date - the customer found it in the next e-mail (answered another day). Why couldn't the clerk, answering the e-mail, demonstrate a bit of initiative, mention that there is no seats for the requested flight, and offer a couple of available options? She didn't have it in the instructions...

Company ambassadors

People directly interacting with customers must have the mission of leaving the customers pleased (if not always satisfied) in their blood. They're the ones who only can suggest small but very valuable improvements. They should treat every customer as if she were their best friend - not giving a discount but providing the best advice and care they ever can give. Having direction instructions handy instead of getting a formal location's address, offering to return a call (instead of asking customer to call back), finding a zip code in the Internet (instead of asking to complete forms and come again) - all these simple additional steps can be undertaken by employees themselves without special policies or permission from the boss. It doesn't take too much time but adds a great value to the word of mouth about the company.

Closing Thoughts

Customers drive to a facility of FedEx (even if a competitor is across the street), they take a Lufthansa flight with connections (even if a competitor has a direct one), they select trusted IT service provider (even if a competitor one is cheaper). Brands are built by trust and care. If the former is mostly up to the company's policy and strategy, the later is mostly up to the ambassadors i.e. up to each employee to create the right perceptions.

How to Run an Interview

Every senior manager or a top level business executive will have to interview another peer or a middle level manager. In the knowledge driven economy, hiring the right manger is crucial for the organization. But given the current shortage of talent, companies cannot afford to lose a good candidate.

Here is a set of guidelines that will enable you to get the right candidate.

• Know what you want
  
  Before you meet the candidate at an interview, clearly understand what you want. Define the post, define the role, have a clear set of expectations from the candidate. This will save everyone’s time and help you plan decent questions.
  
  
• Be prepared for the interview
  
  
  Many managers are so busy that they don't prepare for the interview - and hope to ‘wing it’. Sharp & intelligent candidates will figure out that you are unprepared for the interview and may be put-off by the shoddy interview. Preparing for the interview will also help prevent the mistake of hiring the wrong candidate.
  
  At a manager level, the interview is a two way process. The candidate is also interviewing you and your organization. If your preparation is sloppy, it will create a negative impression on the potential candidate.
  
  
• Get the room ready
  
  
  Ensure that the room is ready for the interview. This means booking the room in advance, having arrangements for water, coffee/tea during the interview, getting the white board and flip charts in place etc. The quality of the room and the facility can create a good impression on the candidate. This impression helps the candidate choose your organization if selected.
  
  
• Be consistent but flexible
  
  
  When interviewing a bunch of candidates, it is a good practice to level the playing field by asking questions of equal difficulty. I often start off by investigating their resume and building on it. This allows me to frame questions which are relevant to their past experience and how that can be applied to the job for which they are being interviewed for.
  
  
• Let them shine
  
  
  The main point in an interview is to let the interviewee do most of the talking. The best way to ensure that is to ask open ended questions such as: "What was the toughest challenge you faced in your current/previous jobs?", "What was the toughest decision you had to make in your work?" Etc. The idea is to let them speak - and then you can pickup from what they said.
  
  
• Keep a record
  
  
  Maintain a record of the interview. Note down the answers, main points etc. during the interview process. The recording process must be objective - to the point that it should help you choose between different candidates, help you filter out unsuitable candidates and most of all, it will help you defend your decision - when explaining it internally to your organization.
  
  
• Don’t Discriminate
  
  Discrimination of any sort can be dangerous. Legally your decision to choose a candidate over another (from different race/religion/sex/age group etc.) may be OK, but if any candidate files a discrimination case, then the reputation of your organization and your personal reputation within the company is at grave risk. The best policy is the let meritocracy win!

Closing Thoughts

For many managers, interview is a regular business process - some have acquired the art of interviewing, but in today’s busy world, even the best of the interviewers are prone for mistakes. Having a plan for the interview, getting the questions in place and conducting the interview with an eye for hiring the candidate is essential for the organization. In my past experience, I had heard one manager telling that he wanted to hire people who are smarter than him - this was an indication of his seriousness, his preparedness and his modesty. All these factors help in selecting a right candidate.