Tag: #Career

Sales Knowledge: Answer Intelligence (AQ)™

Asking the question was the best way of showing intelligence in yesteryears. But today, answering those questions is also seen to be the best way to show intelligence. 

The new word coined by Dr. Glibkowski is Answer Intelligence (AQ)™

We can always ask questions out of curiosity. But the answer we give should be influencing. That’s why they say, “Questions are for Curiosity, and Answers are for Influence.” 

AQ is a must nowadays for every entrepreneur and professional. If you want to become an influencer, your answers should be of the following types: story, metaphor, theory, concept, procedure, and action. 

A question can be constant all the time. But the answer can always be learned and improved.

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Better be the Head of the Bee than the Tail of the Lion

imagesBig Banner company or a mid size company?

It is the undeniable dilemma everyone will have after our very first job. Have we ever analysed as why we get this dilemma in our career path?

Before getting into that let us analyse the difference between these two segments. A job is always a job. Then why do we differentiate as Big banner companies and other companies?

Following are the very basic needs of a job:

  1. Salary
  2. Title
  3. Growth with learning curve
  4. Satisfaction level.

Let us take one after the other

Salary:

Who doesn’t want more salary? If  X is our salary then our expenditure would always be X+1. So this gives us an insight of whatever be the salary our expectation is +1 or our deficit will be X – 1. If this scenario is true then banner of the company is not going to make any difference for us.

Title:

Title in the first 10 years of our career will be seen as a pride to handle with power. But after a while we will certainly understand that increase in title will come with increase in responsibilities. Increase in responsibilities will also have increase in work pressure.

For example, let us take sales in to consideration. When we are an executive we will carry a target of X. But if we get promoted as Senior executive our target should be nothing less than X +1. Even if we say that our company gives the same X as our target then we will be the first to get called as Non Performer for not reaching the target. But if we reach the target there won’t be much appreciation because we are carrying the same target as our junior.

So what is seen as a pride is seen as a burden at a later stage. But can we continue without a title hike. No, it is also not possible. So we have to handle the pressure to grow in our career. Else we will not get recognised whether we are working in a big banner or a startup.

Growth with learning Curve

Growth in terms of Salary and Title are already discussed. So this growth is pertaining to the potential of getting involved into the knowledge and learning new aspects of business or new technologies and getting involved into new projects.

Our resume will carry enough weightage only if we say that we have involved into different stages of sale or into different technologies in development side. After a stage if we say we are specialised into one area of business or into one technology then our potential of getting into our dream jobs at a later stage will be very remote.

Satisfaction Level

End of the day, all the above discussed aspects will become irrelevant if our career satisfaction level is not up to our expectation. But again, we have the scope to live up to our satisfaction alone. But it is not possible in the current competitive career world though.

So knowingly or unknowingly our Satisfaction Level will become a matter of consideration only if we are able to achieve all the above Viz. Salary, Title and Growth with Learning Curve.

If we have started our career with large company then most of us will tend to continue our career in the large company itself. It is because of the sophistication we would have seen in the big banner companies.

But if we have started our career with midsize or a startup company then naturally we will have a passion to get in to a big banner company.

So on both the scenarios our vision or mission is to get into big banner companies only.

Then why people from startup or mid size companies are more recognised than people in the big banner companies?

The answer is simple. KNOWLEDGE.

It is an undeniable fact that people from small and mid size companies carry more work related knowledge than people from Large companies.

It is not because people from Big Banner companies are not capable to learn or perform. It is because the scope of involving into every aspect of the business or into diversified technologies are not possible in big banner companies. They will have limited KRA in large companies and in small companies you will automatically get involved into every aspect of business or into most of the technologies your division is dealing with.

Now apply the title here and you will get the answer.

“Better be the Head of the Bee than the Tail of the Lion”

Will my job survive till next Recession?

1

If you are the breadwinner of your family this should be the question surfacing on top of your mind all the time.

Why do we fear for recession?

For that we should know when the next recession will tentatively start. As per the economist, first the Federal Reserve correction/ action should happen and then the tentative timeline for the next recession will be 12-15 months from that date.

The best one to predict with the nearest possible accuracy on the occurrence of Recession is the Stock Market. So far the stock market has predicted almost 5 recessions accurately from March 1961.

The recovery period or the average growth period of economy between two recessions is around 5-6 years taking the past records from WWII era. But if we consider the last recovery of the earlier recession which happened in 2009 with the 6 years average growth period, we are almost exactly on the 6th year. So on this calculation the recession is some there in the corner for sure.

What is the first sign?

As I said earlier stock markets only can predict the scenario in a more accurate way than others. If we take the stock market data points, the first sign of recession has already happened on August 24, 2015 with the big crash by the Chinese Stock Market mounting to a loss of nearly 40%.

The second sign is, during 2007 the Federal Reserve was only 500 Billion whereas today it is 1.6 Trillion. The 1.1 trillion dollar is now idling with just 0.25% interest in the Fed reserve. Can fed reserve let it go for long time?

Banks are not ready to lend this money to others as it didn’t see any credit-worthy borrowers. When we take the above two data points alone, we can predict that the recession is almost there in the corner. Markets were able to recover from August 24 crash. But it is still 12% below than average till date.

So we can conclude that the next recession will not delay beyond 12-15 months from December 2015 – February 2016. The peak period will be between mid 2016 to early 2018. If this didn’t happen then don’t worry till 2020.

Now let us come to the original question. Will my job survive till next recession?

It all depends on which path your current or new company is going to take.

Companies will first focus on Profitability. They will do all possible to increase the Gross Margin. The simultaneous step any company will do is to Cut the Costs even if they don’t see any reduction in the inflow of money. This will help the company to Preserve the Cash

Cockroaches thrive more during disaster period not just in Personal life but also in Profession life too.

If the company is going to increase the Gross Margin, they will automatically stop recruiting high paid profiles. If required, they will let go the non performers on the same high paid profiles. Since the company itself
is going to apply all the possible strategy to escape from the recession, it is implicit that every employee should go all possible extra miles to increase their performance in the current company and secure their job.

If we join a new company now it will take nothing less than 6 – 12 months to prove our efficiency beyond the luck aspect. By then it will be the actual starting point of the peak recession. If we fail, then we will be the first one the company will let go.

So apply your common sense and take a decision to secure your job wherever you are.

I am worried – I didn’t quit my job yet!

sheepBlind Sheep Syndrome

I am worried, I didn’t quit my job yet but my fellow team members already quit. If you can understand the above sentence, this is the exact meaning of “Blind Sheep Syndrome”

People without any self determination or people who think they are always perfect in taking decisions are the victims of the above syndrome. This can be seen much in professional life. If a horror movie becomes successful, all of a sudden you can see there will be 4 to 10 horror movies going to come out one after the other.

This same blindness is always followed in career too. The moment your close colleague quits his job you will become restless and very detached from your job. You will start worrying that you didn’t quit your job yet Or at least you will start analysing whether you are correct on continuing with the current job.

Other way of people getting affected by this syndrome is by the people who got the quality of influencing others. The moment these guys drop their paper they will somehow make others to think twice in continuing with their current company.

Can we avoid this?

The answer is NO. But we can control the situation.

Believe there is always an antidote available for any epidemic. The Managers are the role players for this and if they have the complete hold of the team then this situation can always be kept under control.

Flat or Hierarchical Organisation Structure

What if the Manager quits?

The classic case of requirement of the combination of flat and hierarchical organisation will arise if your Manager controls the entire team. Gone are the days to have either Flat or Hierarchical Organisation Structure. Today the need is always a blend of both of these structures.

If you think people are your core asset then you should avoid going to Hierarchical organisation. Hierarchical Organisation will always create a professional gap between different layers of people which will eventually end up with atttrition. Same way, Flat Organisation will result into tough situation of satisfying your people on their growth roadmap.

The Blind Sheep Syndrome will always affect the Hierarchical Organisation more than the Flat Organisation.

If we have a combined structure of Flat & Hierarchical Organisation then we can avoid the wild situation arising out of Blind Sheep Syndrome.

After all, job is the need of any individual. But company as a whole is the need of any Management.