PMI-Milwaukee Breakfast Discussion - Career Planning for Project Managers

I am invited to be a guest speaker/panelist tomorrow at my local Project Management Institute (PMI-Milwaukee) Chapter.  The topic for tomorrow's discussion is: Career Planning for Project Managers. The event is hosted by Direct Supply from 7:00-8:30AM at their offices in Milwaukee.

Presentation Summary:  

Project managers need to manage their careers over the long term just like anyone else. If an organization has more than a few project managers then there will be a mix of people with different skills, experience, and aspirations. It's natural for some people to leave and others to take their places.

How do organizations manage that mix over the long term? What do project managers aspire to do after they've gotten really good at their jobs? What opportunities can we create for them that will use their strengths while helping them to get what they want from their careers?  

If you are interested in learning more about this topic as a blog post, please leave your comments below.

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SAFe Training Calendar Published!

I am glad to be announcing our SAFe Training Calendar for the months of October & November.  Please checkout the current offerings and sign up early. The October classes have a maximum capacity of 15 and the November classes can accommodate up to 20 participants.  Payment is easy via PayPal with a major credit card. If you would like to pay over the phone, please send me and email and a contact number where I can reach you.

The location details will be provided via email as soon as the registration has been completed. The cost of registration includes lunch, snacks for both days and exam registration for certification.

I look forward to meeting you soon!

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October 2 2016

Warm Autumn wishes! Today is October 2 2016. As I remember to two years ago when I had delivered my toastmasters speech on the occasion October 2 1869, A Glimpse Back in History Also, a lot has changed since that day. I have been away from blogging on my site for almost two years. 

However, I am back now and will be sharing with my readers and followers what I have been doing during this long hiatus. I will be sharing what content topics you can expect to see here and as always, please leave your comments on what topics you are most interested in reading.

I also have started up two Meetup communities - Predictive Analytics Ozaukee & Scaled Agile Framework SAFe Ozaukee.  I will give my readers more in the upcoming weeks on what each of those communities are and how if you are local to Ozaukee county Wisconsin or surrounding area can join us at our next gathering.

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It has been quite a while since I have blogged. I have many updates to share and I plan to become more regular with my postings here. For all my readers, I thank you for your support and encouragement as I pickup where I left off. Since my last post on 1869, A Glimpse back in History, I have completed all my 10 speech projects for my Competent Communication Track - Toastmasters Educational Program.

I have achieved my certification as CC and currently working on my Advanced Communication Series. I have started my YouTube channel and also on Pinterest .
In my upcoming post I shall share with you a schedule of the weekly posts you can expect on this blog and would love your suggestions for topics you would like me to blog on. Please share your comments and suggestions for ideas below.

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October 2nd 1869: A Glimpse Back in History

Non-violence is the greatest force at the disposal of mankind. It is mightier than the mightiest weapon of destruction devised by the ingenuity of man. - Mahatma Gandhi

Today is October 2nd 2014 and marks the 145th anniversary of the birth of Mahatma Gandhi.  The honorific Mahatma in Sanskrit means "high-soul", venerable, great soul";  also widely referred to in India as "Bapu" or father. 2nd October is also recognized world-wide as International Day of Non-Violence and on this occasion, I would like to share with you a glimpse back in history about the life of this legendary soul, peacemaker and freedom fighter - Mahatma Gandhi.

October 2nd 1869, in the rural village of Porbander, Kathiawar District, West Gujarat, a preeminent leader of Indian independence movement in British-ruled India was born.   

Source:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kathiawar_Agency#mediaviewer/File:Baroda_state_1909.jpg

His name was Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi.  Gandhi's parents were Karamchand Gandhi and Putlibai, a Hindu merchant caste family in Gujarat.  After completing his primary and secondary education in India, Gandhi took interest to become a barrister.  Barristers specialize in courtroom advocacy, drafting legal pleadings, and giving expert legal opinions.  So, he traveled to England in 1888 for his education in law.  He earned his degree in law and returned to India in 1891.  Upon his return, he found himself  unsuccessful in setting up his law practice. He observed that the local "vakils" or lawyers, homegrown and well versed with Indian law were charging far less for their services than their British educated counterparts. In a futile attempt upon the advice of his friends & elders, he heads to Bombay to fill his gap by getting educated on Indian Law. His success in the courtrooms of Bombay as a lawyer is short lived and when he received a job offer as a legal advisor for an Indian company in Durban, South Africa, he readily accepts it.

He moved to SouthAfrica in 1893 when Africa's Apartheid movement was in full force. He continued to work and live here for over 20 years during which time he witnessed and felt the pain, the suffering and racial discrimination the Indians and Blacks were going through in South Africa.  Soon Gandhi found himself at the receiving end of such abuse and he vowed to take up the baton on behalf of the Indian community. He organized the expatriate Indians and protested against the injustices meted out by the African government. After years of disobedience and non-violent protests, the South African government finally conceded to Gandhi's demands and an agreement to this effect was signed in 1914. A battle was won, but Gandhi realized the war that was to be waged against the British awaits his arrival in India. Hence, he returned to India the following year.

Between the years of 1858-1947, the Indian subcontinent was under the British Raj ("rule"). His early movements for freedom started in South Africa - Satyagraha, meaning "truth" and "firmness". In 1915 he started his mission for freedom for the people of India by participating and organizing various movements that were already underway, under the guidance of his political mentor - Mr. Gopal Krishna Gokhale.  Gandhi always advocated a path of truth and non-violence through the Satyagraha movement. Some of his famous campaigns led for India's freedom struggle were: the Non-cooperation movement, civil disobedience movement , the Salt Tax abolition campaign - Dandi March and the Quit IndiaMovement. He got arrested on several occasions. His slogans "Quit India" , "Do or Die" were very popular.  Gandhi's vision for a free India was based on religious pluralism, however this was challenged during the early 1940's by a new Muslim nationalism that was demanding a separate Muslim homeland carved out of India. As a result, the British Indian Empire was partitioned into two dominions, a Hindu majority India and a Muslim dominant Pakistan. All these movements led to the British East India Company to set foot back out and India declared Independence on August 15th, 1947. 

Mahatma Gandhi continued his peace campaigns and calming tensions in the new nation between the Hindus and Muslims.  His life in the newly independent country was short-lived when he was assassinated by a Hindu nationalist, Nathuram Godse on 30th January1948 during a prayer meeting.

His birthday, 2nd October, is commemorated as a national holiday in India and celebrated as Gandhi Jayanthi and is also recognized worldwide by the UnitedNations as International Day of Non Violence.  Mahatma Gandhi inspired the world with his relentless faith in truth and justice for all mankind through Ahimsa.  He was a great soul - Mahatma - who loved even those who fought against his ideals to bring about peace with non-violence or 'Ahimsa'. 

His life was a message - a message of peace over power, of finding ways to reconcile our differences and living in harmony with respect and love even for our enemies.  Dear friends, I encourage you to recognize that "Non-violence, which is the quality of the heart, cannot come by an appeal to the brain.." and to consider becoming champions of love and peace to spread this message of Ahimsa. 

-Shabana
Presented at Ozaukee Toastmasters Club #3510
October 2nd 2014

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Empathy In Business Leadership - Traits of A Great Leader

Daniel Goleman first introduced the concept of emotional intelligence to the business landscape after his international best seller, Emotional Intelligence, was a great success.  This new book was aptly named Primal Leadership: Unleashing the Power of Emotional Intelligence. Goleman takes the position that every good leader's task is to prime a good feeling in those that they lead. That good feeling occurs when a good leader has the ability to create resonance - source of positiveness that unleashes the best in people. Further he emphasizes that the primal job of leadership is emotional.  To learn why emotionally intelligent leadership drives resonance, and thus performance, and how to tap into its power for the individual leader, teams, or entire organizations, I highly recommend reading Daniel Goleman's Primal Leadership - Unleashing the Power of Emotional Intelligence.

The four fundamental domains of emotional intelligence are:
1) self-awareness
2) self-management
3) social awareness, and
4) relationship building

These four domains are closely related and in order to be successful, a great leader must understand their relationship.  A leader who is not aware of his or her emotions cannot manage them well due to lack of self-awareness.  Their emotions are out of control and as a result relationships will suffer. In this post, I shall just focus on the relationship aspect of emotional intelligence and how empathy plays an important role in leadership. Dealing with emotions in the workplace is an skillful leadership trait and is easier said or written than practiced. Relationship management is not just about being a friendly person, it is about being genuine and authentic. For a leader, it becomes a powerful catalyst for resonance, once they are tuned in to the emotions of their teams they lead to fuel richer, more meaningful interactions.

Empathy is the ability to understand the emotional makeup of other people and it is also an artful skill in treating people according to their emotional reactions. It fuels deep connections. Business leaders who are empathetic are great active listeners. They are not just paying attention to what is being said  verbally, but also tuned into the non-verbal cues from their audience. They are able to probe deeper, understand purpose, and most importantly, summarize back key points of agreement and build rapport effectively with meaning.

Hence, to be a great leader, it is important to make the connection with the people you lead- genuinely at an emotional level - in order to foster strong relationships.  This in return builds rapport and becomes a powerful catalyst for resonance in bringing out the best in people.  In conclusion, I am sharing this short video clip on The Power of Empathy - A RSA Short by Dr. Brennie Brown. Dr.Brown is a research storyteller & professor at the University of Houston, TX. In this clip she demonstrates the key differences between empathy and sympathy and how one drives connection while the latter drives disconnection.

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Are you breeding a cancerous middle management culture that is silently killing your organization's reputation?

Editor’s note (2026): This article was originally published in 2014, before concepts such as psychological safety and toxic middle management entered mainstream leadership discourse. I’ve chosen to leave it intact as a reflection of early thinking on organizational culture and leadership accountability.

  

What prompted me to write an article on this topic today? Well, it was this video on CNN.com on the French Telecom company, Orange that was on the news recently for a recent rise in suicides among its employees. Let me take a step back to provide a short background for this article. 

In 2012, the former Chief Executive Officer - Didier Lombard was indicted by a court in Paris and bailed over allegations that he led a corporate culture of bullying and harassment that resulted in the suicide of at least 30 employees. He served in this position from 2005-2010.  Critics allege that it was some of his brutal management principles and 'bullying culture' that contributed to these suicides.  Also, in particular scrutiny was his so-called “NExT” (New Experience in Telecommunications) program, an effort to drive efficiency and increase customer value, resulted in a restructure that cut more than 22,000 jobs over a short period of time. In addition it also forced managers to change jobs every three years. This program was soon terminated by his successor. 

 In 2013, once again Orange restructures its organization in an effort to simplify its innovation structure to improve efficiency and tightens its executive committee.  Vivek Badrinath was appointed as the Deputy Chief Executive Officer to lead the Group’s innovation, technology and customer experience resources. Mr. Badrinath, who was 43 with a strong technical background held a few short leadership positions prior to his appointment with Orange.  Most recently this year in 2014, Vivek Badrinath, left Orange to join Accor, a hotel group.  His void was filled by appointing Mari-Noëlle Jégo-Laveissière to lead the innovation, marketing and technologies division as reported in a press release dated March 14 by Orange.

Large corporations such as Orange, previously French Telecom, present many challenges to their leadership.  Corporate culture and organizational identity are just two of  the many important challenges that senior leadership must pay attention to be successful in the long run.  In  September 2004 French Telecom sold a part of its shareholding and it was no longer a major shareholder as a result of the 1997 Asian Financial crisis. Hence, it became a private company after 115 years in a post-nationalization era of the telephone system!

 This organization went through a major transformation, while its top executives maintained their focus on advancing its winning global marketplace position further without establishing a solid transition strategy.  This is evident from its executive turnover history.  While executive management was focused on being a global leader in telecommunication services, perhaps it had given birth to a silent killer - a cancerous middle management culture that was developing operational tactics to support its executive management's corporate strategic vision. This new sub-culture was far different from the organization's corporate culture. Evidence of this is known from employee survey data that was conducted during the suicide investigations.

Image Courtesy: BBC UK News Health

Often middle-management is a layer between two layers of management in an organization. They are a step above a non-managerial role and a step below senior management. Some may report to a C-level executive directly, while others may just report to a non C-level executive in the organizational hierarchy. Often, this depends on the size, industry, and sector of the organization.  It is imperative for C-level executives to be proactively monitoring the performance its middle-level management on a regular basis and its cultural health.

Questions such as: are our employees generally happy? What is our employee turnover ratio? What is the annual employee survey data telling us? etc. are helpful in gaining valuable insights on your organization's culture health.  Instead of adding more middle-management, have you considered a shift toward abolishing middle management all together in your organization? In today's social world, rebuilding corporate reputation can be a very expensive process. Hence organizations must develop proactive measures to safeguard against any threats to its reputation. 

 A cancerous middle management culture can be defined as a sub-culture that threatens your organizational identity and is far different from your organization's core values and traditions. It has a negative impact on employee morale & productivity.  In organizations that are not process mature, it can give birth to ad-hoc processes that help it thrive and sustain.  It sometimes can ruthlessly eliminate a workforce or talent that it perceives as a threat to its existence.  As it thrives in silence and spreads like cancer, it is critical for executive management to diagnose early-on and treat it swiftly as it can be detrimental to an organizational overall reputation, its identity and the workforce's well-being when left ignored. 

I would like to conclude this article by asking you this thought provoking question: Are you breeding a cancerous middle management culture that is silently killing your organization's reputation? Please share your thoughts and comments !

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