How Do I Find A Mentor?

A couple of weeks ago, a friend came up to me and said Paul I really want to find a mentor. I need someone, whom I can trust and help me navigate through the organizational politics, put a perspective on the challenges and opportunities I am facing and help connect me to other people inside and outside the organization. He asked me how to go about this.

A great question, as I have met many people who had similar needs but didn’t know whom to or how to approach a potential mentor due to the fear of being rejected. Whatever the reason here are a number of steps for getting a mentor:

Step 1: Know What You Want
My favorite Stephen Covey habit is “Start with The End In Mind”. The same applies when finding a mentor. Know yourself and know what you are looking for. What do you want a mentor to help you with? Is it networking, office politics, feedback, new ideas on that project you are working on, work – life balance questions, career  counseling or all of those above. The more specific you are, the easier it is to identify an individual that can help you. 

Health warning: only use a mentor for personal learning, growth and reflection. Don’t use a mentor as a shortcut for promotion, as it will surely come back flying in your face. 

Step 2: Go Outside Your Comfort Zone
Knowing what you want from the mentor relation will help you identify the expertise, relations and experiences you are looking for in a mentor. If for example you are a mechanical engineer working in a fertilizer plant who has the ambition and skill to move to general management but you lack specific financial or business-2-business experience, you should find a person in the company who can guide you and give you insight in your area of interest , how to move in that role and aspects to consider when trying to transit.

Don’t restrict yourself to your own department/company. Look outside, who are role models in your field of work, who are the leading experts. Check your LinkedIn network, talk to friends, senior colleagues, executives in your company. Ask them who they think could be the best person to help you in your quest to become better and grow. Or better yet approach the person who you have always looked up to.

Be bold go outside your comfort zone and pick the best there is. 

Step 3: Get Introduced
If you have zeroed in on a potential mentor who you don’t know yourself then the best way to get connected is by being introduced. Approach someone who can help you get introduced to the individual you are inclined towards speaking with. The change of getting a positive answer by cold calling in my experience is close to ‘zero’. I personally have never ever been successful in pitching to a person who I have not been introduced to, or who has heard about me. I also don’t react on any approaches I get from people that I don’t know. 

Work the network and get people to introduce you to your ideal mentor. 

Step 4: Be Interesting and Give Back
As much as you want to learn from a mentor, you have to make it worthwhile for the mentor to be willing to invest in the relation. I personally would never be able to mentor a person who is mundane and dull. Make it interesting, give back to the mentor, and help him with experiences or skills that he doesn’t have. You have to create a relationship that is worthwhile for both. 

In the late 90’s the CEO of a global company took it upon himself to mentor a number of young trainees who recently joined the company. Of course the trainees were delighted to be mentored by the global CEO, but it was not his altruistic motives that were at play here. He had a clear intention to gain as well from the relationship as he wanted to understand how young people interacted and used new technology (this was the height of the dotcom area for those of you who remember). 

Step 5: You Are Responsible
Finally don’t forget the number one rule of the mentor – mentee relationship: the mentee is responsible! He/she is responsible for making sure the meetings are organized and taking place, actions are being followed up and in general make sure the relation continues to flourish. If you do this well the relationship will surely last a career and be ‘priceless’. 

Next week: Why Should You Become A Mentor?

– Paul Keijzer

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How HSBC Middle East Forces SME’s Out Of Business

No this is not a bank bashing story. This is simply a personal experience on how my (ex-) bank, HSBC Middle East, treats its customers.

As a customer, banks are not my favorite destination. Luckily they have over the last decade tried to limit my personal exposure of having to deal with them directly (ATM’s, internet banking, phone banking, and mobile banking). Although at the end we are still dependent on them as we give them control over something that is very important and dear to us, our money!

My aversion towards banks reached a new peak last month, when upon checking my account information online, I was confronted with the fact that my account balance of my company account was zero and the notification read “account closed as per August 25”. My 2 years of company savings had magically disappeared in thin air. A strange sensation crept down my spine realizing that my money was gone.

To give you a bit of a background I have been a happy HSBC customer for the past 10 years with a number of personal and company accounts in a number of different countries. When I opened my company in Dubai I had no second thoughts other than to open my company account with HSBC expecting that my being a premier customer in other parts of the world it would help them in their ‘Know Your Customer’ requirements to facilitate the relation. How wrong could I have been? Yes pretty wrong!

I run a small consultancy firm in the UAE and my banking needs are very limited, I only require basic checking account transactions and online access. All my interactions with the bank were channeled through an anonymous customer service email account that responded generally within 48 hours to my questions. Interesting thing was that at no point would an employee of HSBC identify himself as the responses were always signed ‘yours sincerely HSBC Bank Middle East’. This was never an issue as the queries were always small. But as all my money had suddenly disappeared this became a huge issue because I had no one to turn to.

So the only option I had was to write an emergency email on August 26 to the anonymous email address and ask what has happened to my money. I received the following email response the next day:

“Dear Sir,
We thank you for your email.
We hereby take this opportunity to advise that we have sent you the attached important and official communication by registered post with regards to your account held with us.
In accordance with the attached communication, we advise that your account remains closed as of 25 August 2013 and the final balances shall be dispatched by way of a Managers Cheque to the company’s registered address as held in our records.
Should you have any queries or need assistance feel free to contact us.
Assuring you of our best services at all times.

Yours Sincerely,
HSBC Bank Middle East Limited
Corporate Services”

With this mail was the attachment that was sent on June 2 by Mr Rana El-Emam, Head of Business Banking U.A.E. that read:

“Following a strategic review of our business customers, we will now be providing a personal relationship manager in all cases but subject to qualifying criteria…..based on the above, I am sorry to advise that you will no longer qualify for business banking services from HSBC and we will need to close your account with us”

Despite the fact that the bank was instructed and till then had always sent all documents, cheque books and other stuff to my home address, they sent the most important document to my company licensed office address that they knew I only visited once a year. Completely unaware of this notification I continued using my account, intimating the details to my clients for payments and using it to pay my suppliers. The simple fact that I had not approached the bank to move my account  should have lit up warning signals triggering someone to think that ‘hey maybe this client is not aware of our decision to close his account, let me call him’. None of this happened and HSBC continued to close my account.

Let me be clear. I have no problem in the decision that HSBC has made, that is their prerogative. They can decide whom they want as a client and whom they don’t. I can certainly be disappointed about their decision in the light of all my other banking relations with HSBC, but that is not the point.

What completely baffles me is how they went about executing this decision with no respect to their clients and just shutting down accounts. They completely ignored my pleas to either speak to a human (other than the anonymous email) or to re-open my account for a short period so I could continue my business and move my account to another bank. Basically leaving me with no bank account for my business and thereby shutting down my business.

To be honest the customer service I have received from HSBC Singapore has been outstanding. It shows that customer service is personal, no matter how hard you try to institutionalize it.  It differs from one person to another, from one leader to another and proves how difficult it is for a global concern to make sure that each and every operation in every part of the world lives their self proclaimed values (taking directly from HSBC website):

“Our values describe the character of HSBC and reflect the best aspects of our heritage. They define who we are as an organization and what makes us distinctive. By operating in accordance with our values we are: Connected to customers, communities, regulators and each other, caring about individuals and their progress, showing respect, being supportive and responsive”.

HSBC Middle East should read up on that statement again if they want to retain customers as I am moving on, taking my banking business somewhere else.

– Paul Keijzer

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Re-Inventing Executive Search in Pakistan

The time has come to re-invent Executive Search in Pakistan as the current way of doing executive search is detrimental for all parties involved; companies, candidates and search agencies.

Executive search was booming in 2006 and 2007. Opportunities in Pakistan were exploding. Banks discovered personal loans and credit cards as the new frontier. Telecoms were creeping into every nook and corner of the country and other industries were using the slip stream of a fast growing economy and a new emerging middle class. In addition the Middle East had an unquenchable thirst for relatively cheap Pakistani professionals creating a perfect storm for aspiring Pakistani career seekers. Companies didn’t know where to find the candidates to fill their vacancies. Salaries were skyrocketing and executive search companies had become very busy and began reaping solid returns. 

It was also the beginning of the end. Everybody jumped on the band wagon trying to cash in on the boom. The number of companies and individuals offering ‘executive search’ in Pakistan at some count reached more than 100. With so many people vested in this business segment the competition started its race to end at the proverbial bottom the moment the economy tanked and the number of vacancies dried up. Fees in the mid ’00’s at 2 months of the placed individuals annual salary dropped to as low as 1/2 month salary for the successful placement of a candidate in the space of a couple of months. 

With an over supply of talent,  companies started to use other sources and channels to identify candidates as well as ‘farmed’ out their vacancies to multiple search agencies, all fighting for the remaining crumbs. As a result the chance for a search agency to close a position and earn a meager success fee dropped close to zero. Search agencies in response were only willing to make a minimal effort to find a candidate which affected the quality of the search, impacting how companies would value the service and increase the number of channels further reducing the chance of a fee etc. A vicious circle was created. 

As a consequence I hear companies complain about the lack of quality of search firms, I hear search firms complain about their lack of revenue and I hear candidates complain that search firms and companies alike show little professionalism in the selection and courting process. In others words a lose-lose-lose situation. 

How to turn this around? The obvious solution lies in breaking this downward spiral and creating a situation where everybody wins. The company finds the right talented resource at the right time, the candidate is approached, selected and placed in a professional manner and the executive search firms earns a decent income. 

To turn this around the ball is in the court of the search agencies. They have to make a first step and commit themselves to significantly improving the quality of the search service and:

• Adhere to a professional code of conduct highlighting their responsibility and guide their actions towards clients and candidates
• Truly understand the clients requirements and translate that into search criteria (skills, competencies and fit)
• Use every channel possible to search candidates (database, social media, referrals etc.)
• Ensure appropriate due diligence on and permission from the candidate before presenting them to the client
• Guarantee quick response times to both clients and candidates

The next step is for executive search firms to convince clients that a successful search assignment requires a partnership between the client and search agency. A partnership in which both parties win, a company finds a quality candidate and the agency earns a decent living. For this to work you have to create a mutual commitment towards the search in which both parties have ‘skin in the game’. The best way to create this is by complementing the successful placement fee with an upfront ‘effort fee’ through which both of them commit each other to completing a successful placement. Of course this is not new and is the only way executive search firms in other parts of the world work. In fact some executive search firms have switched to a 100% of upfront fee guaranteeing a successful placement.

Companies have to realize that for them to receive a decent quality service they have to make a commitment and pay for that service whilst search agencies have to commit themselves to providing a quality service. This goes hand in hand and only when both make a move forward will we be able to stop the downward trend in which everybody loses. 

What are the issues that you have faced with either companies or search firms and how do you think can we re-invent executive search in Pakistan?

– Paul Keijzer

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Management Trainees: The Special Ones

Many companies have got a management trainee scheme in place in which they recruit the ‘creme-de-la-creme’ from top universities, announce their arrival with much aplomb in the organization, give them a two year rotation program, provide them with all the ‘trendy’ training courses, promote them upon completing the two years and then put them on a career fast track. They are the ‘Special Ones’.

Whenever I have conversations with ‘battle-hardened’ middle managers on management trainees they understand why the company is doing it, but that they have two problems with it.

Firstly they tell me that this is all well but their concern is that this kid is going to be with them for a couple of months max and his / her special treatment will create a lot of resentment with other team members whom they count on for the delivery of year-on-year results and the company can’t afford to jeopardize that. Absolutely true and I can feel the dichotomy between the need for short term (prime responsibility of middle managers) and long term development of talent. 

My answer in these situations has always been that being a top talent is not a genetic implant. Everybody has the opportunity for a career. As long as you deliver outstanding results and do it in a way that is compatible with the companies culture you can become a top talent. It’s an aspiration that everybody can have and should be able to achieve. 

And that is where middle manager can play a role, helping their solid performers to acquire skills / experiences and providing them with opportunities to show to the world that they are also capable of delivering outstanding results. So they are then recognized as top talent and being pushed up in the organization. 

The other objection middle managers raise is that putting someone on such a pedestal only sets him up for failure as they become over confident and big headed. This one I feel is much more difficult to answer and I have seen examples where giving your graduates special attention and making them feel they are the ‘special one’ is counter-productive. 

Scientific research backs up this concern. Studies primarily focused on the effect of ‘praise on children’, especially adolescents, have delivered similar insights.

In a scientific study from Mueller and Dweck in 1998 randomly selected students from a  wide range of socio economic backgrounds were provided with problems to solve, after which they were praised for either (1) their intelligence and score, (2) their effort and score or simply (3) the score they received. When provided a second and third set of problems of increasing difficulty the children who received praise for their efforts constantly improved their scores whereas the children praised for their intelligence did the worst and overall declined in score from the first to the third round. 

Ed Wiseman in 59 Seconds states that “praising children on their traits (intelligence, talents) can actually have a detrimental effect as it encourages them to avoid challenging situations, not try so hard and quickly become demotivated. In contrast praising efforts encourages people to stretch themselves, work hard and persist in the face of difficulties.”

So when you praise your ‘Special Ones’ don’t compliment on their abilities or talents. You need to focus on their effort, concentration, ability to overcome obstacles, ability to learn, the way they interacted with people, built a team and the new ideas that they put forward. Make it as practical as possible and make them feel special about the things that matter, not about the traits that they are gifted with. 

– Paul Keijzer

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Number 100 and the Half-Life of Knowledge

‘Half Life’ is normally associated with science, where it indicates the time required for a quantity to fall to half its value as measured at the beginning of the time period. In physics this is normally related to the time it takes for an object to lose half of its radiation levels. However Half-Life has inspired many and taken all kinds of new forms from a video game, to a comic character, movie, novel and even the title of a song.

Half-Life is also associated with knowledge where it generally indicates the time required for the knowledge of facts to have been proven wrong or lose its relevance. Samual Arbesman in his book the Half-Life of Facts argues that everything we know has an expiry date and goes on to explain that often what we think is true now, is proven wrong at some point in the future. 

In business and certainly in business literature this also seems to be holding true. Ponzi and Koenig argue that if after 3–5 years the number of articles on the idea in a given year decreases significantly then the idea is most likely a “management fad”. Who doesn’t remember the infallibility of topics like Total Quality Management, Japanese Kaizen, One Minute Management, ISO 9000, Business Process Re-engineering, Delayering, Management by Walking Around, Matrix Structures and my all time favorite ‘FISH!’ philosophy?

The moral of the story: Whatever you think holds true today doesn’t necessarily hold true in the future.

For me as a consultant this realization holds even more relevance as companies and leaders pay me for the specific skills and knowledge I have on, in my case, transforming top teams, top talent and organizations. I realize that the value I have for an organization also has a half-life. I can only add value for a certain period or activity for which the organization doesn’t have the knowledge and skills in house. Over time the need for that skill decreases or if it doesn’t the company develops it in house. The only way for me to stay in business is to keep myself relevant to current customers by always re-inventing myself and to stay ahead of the knowledge curve.

And this is where Engage Asia and my blogs come in. Forcing myself to write and engage you has given me the opportunity to:

1. Explore new ideas, concepts and opinions through other people’s books, blogs and articles on the most eclectic topics possible
2. Share this knowledge with others and
3. Learn (the best way to learn is to teach others)

This is my 100th blog post and you reading (some of) them has given me not only the opportunity to do the above but also made it worthwhile. I wanted to thank you for your readership, comments and encouragement. It has been an amazing journey so far and I am looking forward to your continued readership.

Happy Reading but above all Keep on Learning – you never know which half of your knowledge will expire.

– Paul Keijzer

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Love Diversity!

Photo credits: Chris Luttrel

Just back from Toronto. Had a great time taking a group of 25 sales and marketing team members out on a Leadership Outbreak journey. The most fascinating element was that these 25 individuals consisted of 8 different nationalities and were from 4 different continents. Woah now that is a diverse group! What fascinated me even more was how this group got along. Specific cultural idiosyncrasies were taken for granted and laughed upon whereas when the going got tough the group really gelled together and delivered results.

Research shows that multi-cultural groups perform when:

• There is a long-term commitment
• There is a focus on a range of issues of shared concern
• They share core values of mutual respect, valuing of difference, and a high level of trust.

All elements were present in this team and it was beautiful to see it working together.

So how do you lead diverse teams? It might sound a bit counterintuitive but research shows that to successfully lead diverse teams you have to focus on task orientation when a team is newly formed to ensure all members are clear about what is expected of them, the roles they have and the structure in which they operate. When this is established the leader can switch to relationship orientation and focus on building trust, commitment to the team and shared values.

Couple of tips on how to lead diverse teams:

Misconceptions and Misunderstandings
Language is essential to communication yet it can cause many misunderstandings. There are thousands of differences in how people might interpret American and UK English. Just because people speak the same language doesn’t mean that it’s as easy for them to communicate as it is for native speakers.

Behaving Differently
Understand, be considerate and tolerant of cultural differences. These can be habits, or beliefs, body language, ways of speaking or the amount of personal space that people want. What may seem strange in South Asia is totally normal in China and completely unacceptable in the United States of America.

Be Self Aware
Think about how your own background, education, upbringing clouds your way of thinking and working style: what you consider normal may not seem normal to others.

Appreciate People as Individuals
The worse you can do is to treat everybody the same. People want to be recognized as individuals, who they are, what they stand for and what they have achieved. Don’t fall into the stereotyping trap.

Leading teams of people that are like you is so much easier. It takes an effort to get out of your comfort zone and make a diverse team work. The advantages however are bountiful. For me the single most advantage is that working in diverse and multi cultural teams is that they make you so much richer.

– Paul Keijzer

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Can You Change Behaviors By Following Others?

I am sure many of you have come across these omnipresent cards in hotel rooms that request you to re-use your towels to save water and protect the environment. Personally, I think these “suggestions” are just about saving costs for the hotel. I just paid a couple hundred dollars for a room and now you want me to save a few dollars for you by not drying myself in a nice, clean, freshly washed towel? Doesn’t seem right…

Despite the fact that 83% of hotels have a linen re-use policy in place, apparently only about 17% of guests actually re-use their towels. It looks like I am not alone!

So how do hotels get guests to re-use their linens? For that matter, how are people convinced to change any of their behaviors? For example; getting people to save energy at home or to wear their safety belts and goggles. How are employees encouraged to fill in an important survey or comply with organizational policies?

Our knee-jerk reaction is the carrot and stick approach (or stick and carrot depending on your humanistic view). We either ‘bribe and/or push’ people to display a desired behavior or implement processes or policies that force people to work in a certain manner. Both ways can be effective, however they are costly (incentives) and often not liked as they constrain (regulation) people.

Robert Cialdini, Professor of Psychology and Marketing at the university of Arizona, has studied what influences and persuades us to do or accept something. He has identified 6 universal principles (check out the YouTube video: Secrets of the Science of Persuasion) that persuade people to change their behavior:

1. Reciprocity
2. Scarcity
3. Authority
4. Consistency
5. Liking and
6. Consensus

The last principle shows that people like to do what many other people have done before. This is nothing new, of course, because we do this all the time. We want to buy a phone in a price range similar to what our friends have, we agree to join in a karaoke contest if all our other colleagues are also participating, or we are willing to try a new dish on the menu if we are told it is the restaurants best selling item (even when we have no clue what it is).

So how can you use this idea to influence people’s behaviors? Cialdini himself gave an example in which a utility company not only provided its customers with information over their personal electricity usage, but on a monthly basis, gave their customers an invoice in which they could compare their electricity usage with that of their neighbors. Over a 3-year period this led to energy savings of 1.3 billion kw/h.

Now, coming back to the re-use towel example… Cialdini experimented with different messages to persuade people to re-use their towels. Nothing had a significant impact except telling people that 75% of the guests (which was a credible and true statistic) in the hotel during their stay re-used their towels. Sharing a factual, statistical piece of information on what others are doing, prompted 30% more people to re-use their towels. And the funny part is, it didn’t cost the hotel a dime.

I am going to try to use these principles in persuading employees of a large organization to change their behavior. How? I don’t know yet, but if I am able to share in a credible manner with employees what other similar employees have done, I am sure they will follow and change their behavior.

Will keep you posted!

– Paul Keijzer

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How To Avoid Procrastination

I just completed the procrastination survey and according to the outcome I rank in the bottom 10% of the population in terms of my level of procrastination. According to the procrastination equation website, (at least) 95% of each one of us sometimes procrastinate and for 15-20% of us it is consistent and problematic. These figures have significantly gone up since the 70’s, where there were only 5% of self-proclaimed procrastinators.

Despite the low survey score (explains how anyone can cheat with personality tests) of course I also do procrastinate and sometimes finish a movie, play that game on my phone, check my emails, go for lunch with my wife; postponing all my work to the latest possible moment. The excuse that I always use is that I work better under pressure and an even better excuse I tell myself is that I am subconsciously preparing myself the whole time. So far it has worked and I have (almost) never missed a client deadline!

According to Dr. Ferrari in Psychology Today “Procrastination: 10 Things To Know”, procrastination is not a problem of time management or of planning. Procrastinators are not different in their ability to estimate time…”Telling someone who procrastinates to buy a weekly planner is like telling someone with chronic depression to just cheer up.”

So how are the people who have been studying the topic of motivation and procrastination and are self-proclaimed sufferers dealing with it? Professor John Perry, an emeritus professor of philosophy from Stanford University, has written a wonderful essay on how he deals with procrastination. He calls it Structured Procrastination and it “requires a certain amount of self-deception, because one is (in effect) constantly perpetrating a pyramid scheme on oneself,” he writes. “One needs to be able to recognize and commit oneself to tasks with inflated importance and unreal deadlines while making oneself feel that these tasks are important and urgent.”

While reading 59 Seconds: Think A Little, Change A Lot, I came across the topic of procrastination once again and found the “just a few minutes” rule to be helpful. According to psychology graduate Bluma Zeigarnik, who first experimented with this idea in the 1920’s, this rule is a highly effective way of overcoming procrastination. The idea here is to work on an activity for “just a few minutes” which leaves the procrastinator with the urge to see it through to completion. This creates an “anxious brain” which makes you want to see the job finished!

I am trying to deal with my procrastination bouts by trying to create new habits, habits in which I force myself to do things and hope that over time they become automatic. Luckily for me my guilt kicks in if I am not able to do stuff as planned (must be the Dutch work ethic that my parents have pumped into me) and this pushes me to get things done.

How do you deal with procrastination?

– Paul Keijzer

Breaking Bad Habits

We all have bad habits. Some people bite their nails, some smoke, some can’t resist that last cupcake and some just can’t get out of bed in time. Some bad habits are small nuisances (mostly to others) while others can be detrimental to our own, and other peoples, happiness (addictions of any kind). We often try to break them, but the majority of people fail to kick their bad habit to the curb. Only 5% of people that join Weight Watchers achieve and sustain their target weight for 2 years!

What are habits, how do they come about, how do you recognize them, and if you know what they are, can you change them? These were some of the questions that New York Times business writer Charles Duhigg tried to answer in his new book; The Power of Habit.

According to Duhigg, habits are powerful things. They prevent you from having to make millions of decisions every day; from how you brush your teeth, to what you eat for breakfast, how you drive to work or to what you do first when you open your computer (read the sports page, check your Facebook page or dive right into those big tasks that you have to complete today). When a habit emerges, the brain stops fully participating in any decision-making and your behavioral pattern unfolds automatically.

The problem is that your brain can’t tell the difference between good and bad habits and as a result, whenever a behavior has become a habit, your brain just waits for the cue and then simply executes it.

So what is a habit? A habit is a loop in which a specific action is triggered by a cue and followed by a reward. Whether it is a sugar rush from eating that chocolate bar, the caffeine kick from your morning coffee or the endorphins that get released by regular exercise, your mind becomes trained to expect the same certain reaction to your actions.

As a habit is a simple cue, action, reward loop, you can actually go about to change it. Duhigg offers a four-step framework to change a habit:

Step 1: Identify the routine
Step 2: Experiment with rewards
Step 3: Isolate the cue
Step 4: Have a plan

At the end of his book, Duhigg himself concludes, “All patterns that exist in our lives are habits that we know exist. Once you understand that habits can change, you have the freedom -and the responsibility- to remake them. Once you understand that habits can be rebuilt, the only option left is to get to work and change them.”

Today I started trying to create a new habit for myself. Instead of waking up lazily at 7:30am to check the sports pages, my blog counts and my emails, today I woke up at 6:00am, had 90 minutes more to get in some exercise, meditate and start the day with my writing. This blog is a result of my first day! My cue was my desire to get more out of my day with the personal insight that I am most productive early in the morning. My reward; exercising and writing gives me the discipline that I crave and producing something early in the day gives me that feeling that, no matter what happens later in the day, I have still achieved something.

Will keep you all posted on whether I am able to translate this intention into a good habit! Good luck changing your bad habits!

– Paul Keijzer

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Happy Independence Day!

We would like to wish all our readers in Pakistan a Happy Independence Day!