Posts By: Ajay Kumar Handa

To make business conferences meaningful, it is important that they be mapped on performance scale. There are good conferences and bad ones. So many man-days are lost in meetings and conferences yielding no returns. Reasons being confused objectives, unclear agenda, bad preparation and poor execution. It is important to fix accountabilities with executives conducting these meetings and hence measure shift in performance and employee engagement from pre to post conference.

Let us take the case of sales meeting in a pharmaceutical company. Performance is easy to measure since these are achievements in numbers against set goals. One could appraise employee engagement, scoring parameters on a scale of 0-5 as below (both pre and post conference)

1. Average number of doctor calls per day
2. Chemist retail audits and feedback on competition
3. In -clinic presentation
4. Scientific product knowledge
5. Implementation of promotion strategy and utilization of inputs
6. Adherence to frequency of doctor visits
7. Number of missed calls in a month out of the list
8. Number of brand conversions
9. Enthusiasm in conducting activities beyond routine work ( say, health check up camps etc.)

It thus becomes easy to map employees on a grid as below:

Period post conference, say a quarter, can be defined by the company. Desired changes as shown in arrows in green confirm that conference was a good spend in time, money and other resources. Arrows in red suggest that top executives review the same and carefully weigh and consider corrections.

No matter how different we are from others in our backgrounds, personalities and situation, there is one common resource we share with everybody. God has been socialistic in granting everyone 24 hours in a day. From the time we are born till we ride in a hearse, life is all about time and contact management. We are all the time in contact with self, another person, a thing or a task. Quality of time and contact, decides our progress. It is important to audit how our time is spent. Following eight could be big times wasters.

1. Wrong Company

Whom was I with, how long, why and how did it help are important queries. Good company adds value, enhances peace, knowledge, thinking, solution and performance. It instils goodness in the self and companion. Two good men can make the world better. Wrong company is definite waste of time.

2. Wrong Place

Many good opportunities in life are lost by being at the wrong place. Every successful man, if re-examines his life would find one most significant turning point where he was at the right place at right time and that changed the course of his life.

3. Wrong Subject

Think of an employee who has joined the organization anew, has great character and is always in high spirits to learn and deliver. Assuming his problem is product knowledge and skill set, it would be unwise for the boss to keep discussing benefits of enthusiasm and not impart necessary training on product and function.

4. Bad mood

One unpleasant exchange during meeting or otherwise with a team member could spoil the mood. Discussion shifts from the core subject to fixing the other or defending self. It is best to defer sensitive discussions to post meeting strolls in the open, in quietude, one to one.

5. Wrong thing

Research tells that an average American watches more than 30 hours of television per week. In addition we all are busy with computers and smart phones. Lot of such time spent is wasted in life.

6. Wrong technique

“You can practice shooting eight hours a day, but if your technique is wrong, then all you become is very good at shooting the wrong way”, said Michael Jordan. It is important to be first time right. Redoing it again costs time, energy and opportunity.

7. Wrong direction

It does not matter how long you travelled if the direction is wrong. Getting into wrong business and dismantling it later is painful. It is best to do adequate research before pursuing a project.

8. Wrong pace

Too slow, you lose the race. Too rash, you could make expensive mistakes. Choose the right pace.

A) Decisions at home

We all pass through different stages of decision making in life.
1. When a child is born, he makes no decisions during initial phase of his life. All decisions are of parents.
2. As he begins to crawl till he gets into studies, few decisions become his, most still are held by parents.
3. From late teens till employment most decisions are his, few are still taken by parents.
4. Finally he grows into taking all decisions of his own in life.

B) Decisions at work

Decisions at work

1. At entry level, during training and induction, employee has no decisions of his own to make. He does as told by the seniors.
2. Accustomed to his job he now begins to take few decisions of his own till he rises to the position of front line management. Most decisions are still held by the bosses.
3. He rises to middle management position and higher order in job where most decisions are his, yet few are held by the owners or the board.
4. If he becomes an entrepreneur, CEO or the Managing Director some time, he is free to take all decisions of his own.

With respect to the decisions at work, it may be noted that reference is not to the quantum as much as to the bearing the decisions have on overall development of the organization and business. Life is easy at work if one understands the following:

a) I cannot take this decision as it violates the core philosophy of business.
b) This is my domain & I can take this decision without any approval from or information to the senior.
c) I can take this decision, but I need to inform my seniors.
d) I can take this decision only on approval from higher ups.

The above does not prohibit anyone from seeking advice and counselling from whosoever. If everyone observes restraint and exercises discretion as above, one would be happy and equally effective in life and at work. Given time tested decisions at work and rising experience, one may gradually expand quadrants c) and b). This would mean assuming authority, becoming assertive and owning up responsibility for the outcome. The rising proportion of two quadrants confirms maturity and growth in life and career.

It may be noted that “good decision making” is a separate chapter.