Times Ascent HR Forum- The Change Manager

The theme of the Times Ascent HR Forum held in SRM University campus, Chennai on 6.3.2010 was much beyond 'The Change Manager'.

Let me share a few learning from the event like I always do :-)

• Mr Santhanam , Managing Director, Saint-Gobain India during his key note address spoke on the importance of nurturing the right company culture. He told us how HR competencies should be classified into 4 categories like Functional Technical competencies, Generic Behavioral competencies, Generic Technical competencies & Functional Behavioral competencies. I believe this kind of classification can make the HR professionals all the more objective about which competencies they should be evaluated upon and improved to become next generation HR professionals.


• Swami Sukhabodhananda made a very captivating speech on how a person's past failures messes up with his present which creates mistrust for future. He spoke on the importance of having creative solutions to problems. Problems would emerge from every corner of our life. Each and every choices in our lives would have it's set of exclusive problems but the way we respond to such problems rather than reacting to them would really make the difference to our well being. He said that in order to perform at our best potential, we should be at the peak of our health, must be relaxed and happy :-) He focussed on holistic success of an individual based on personal, social, work, spiritual and family dimensions. He encouraged everyone to work out of happiness and joy rather than work for happiness and joy. One other interesting point he made was by saying that one should operate in a goodness driven manner and not ego driven manner. He concluded his speech by saying that one should add life to one's years and not years to one's life :-)


• Mr Adil Malia, Group President, HR, Essar Group focussed on the importance of building organisational capability to respond to change. He said how it's important to never compromise on value integration during M&A process. However, complete cultural integration might not be possible and it's important in such a context to mutually appreciate each other's culture. He delivered a beautiful and inspiring Urdu poem "soch ko badlo..sitare badal jayenge...nazar ko badlo...nazare badal jayenge...kashtiya badalne ki zaroorat nahi...dishaon ko badlo...kinare badal jayenge..."


• Mr Ramachandran, Sr Director, HR- Motorola India used a very interesting analogy for change through the way carrot, egg and coffe beans react differently to boiling water. He also spoke about how changer management is more about bringing an emotional change rather than rational change. Also he focussed on long term orientation towards change rather than short term.


• Mr Ravishankar B , Sr VP - HR , HCL Technologies spoke on how to engage Generation Y through the right kind of communication in the change management process. For example a teacher would be able to be a good change manager when he is able to teach the Gen Y students in 140 words[Twitter context] a particular theory related to his subjects.


• Mr E Balaji facilitated the discussion with many interesting questions and by setting the appropriate context.


• Mr G D Sharma, President,HR,BGR Energy Systems facilitating the discussion on 'Performance Management' spoke on the importance of providing employees with clarity in their roles and the rewards attached to it. He coined the 4 Ms of Performance Management as: 1. Management of Performance Management Systems 2. Motivate 3. Mind Set 4. Measurements/Metrics. He even mentioned the 3 important principles that would make any company great would be: 1. Quality of leadership 2. Quality of excellence 3. Ethics and guiding principles.

• Mr Manmohan Bhutani, VP, People & Operations, Fiserv India emphasized on the utmost need to communicate the organizational objectives or performance expectations in a top-down manner. I particularly loved the practice of keeping 'Performance Diary' in his company. The superior is expected to keep track of any exceptional performance or note worthy performance [can be both good or bad performance] in a performance diary which becomes very useful during performance evaluation eventually.

• Ms Aparna Ballakur-VP-HR, Yahoo told us about how Yahoo recognizes and appreciates leadership at all levels. She said Performance management is all about talent management. She also spoke on the importance of mentoring in organizations and emphasized that mentors should mentor their mentees on a particular area of specialization.

• Mr Surajit Maitra, GM-HR,CSC emphasized on linking employee's performance with the client directly. They also partner with their client to benefit from their suggestions and involvement in the performance management process. He also gave a great deal of importance to transparency in the Performance Management process.

• Ms Nina Chatrath , Practice Head-Leadership & Talent Consulting, KornFerry India facilitated the discussion on 'HR.the strategic business partner' by setting the right context and by asking questions to the panel. I really liked her statement when she said that 'empathy' in today's HR context is not so much about the touchy feely soft aspect but rather it's about understanding the other person's view and context.

• Mr K A Narayan, President-HR, Raymond Group spoke on the wide number of activities done in his company which included proper succession planning, having multiple assessment centers, usage of behavioral tools and how it helped the company in many ways.

• Mr KS Bakshi, Head, HR, IndiGo Airlines said that it becomes very important for HR to play a part in the decision making process with the CEO. It was inspiring to know the various ways like games,town hall meetings etc through which his leadership team & HR team keeps in constant touch with the employees inspite of geographical constraints. He also said it's high time that HR starts walking the talk.

• Mr Ragahavendra K, VP & Head-HR, Infosys BPO emphasized that HR or business should work based on a broad framework and keep on intelligently responding to situations. He also emphasized HR to focus on end customers and constantly ask a question that whether HR is enabling business to perform better.

• Mr CVK Maithreya, Director, Professional Consultancy Services was the programme facilitator. He summarized each and every sessions by adding his own thought provoking perspectives.

It was indeed a great learning experience for me :-)