IQ vs EQ: How to find the right balance

Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning have acquainted us with a welcome change that has recoupled the lost quality of human interactions practiced in legacy assessment tools.

The past few years have seen a radical change not only in the way individuals use technology but also in the way corporates purpose it. Technology has transformed the way we go through our routines and the same can be said of the corporate world as well. Technology has enabled corporates and firms to assess prospective as well as the current employees, to optimize their crew for better productivity and efficiency. The hiring process too is going through a structural overhaul with all the technological advancements. While the fundamentals of hiring have remained the same, technology has made the process more efficient. 

Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning have acquainted us with a welcome change that has recoupled the lost quality of human interactions practiced in legacy assessment tools. Automation allows for risk assessment from amongst a pool of distinct candidates. The biggest advantage that AI has brought to the table is the ability to hold unbiased while examining a large quantum of data, ensuring the results stay accurate, efficient and fair. Analysing data can also help recruiters learn from past experiences faster, and learn from the tiny details while recruiting, such as scheduling appointments, sending out reminders, amongst others. This ensures that recruiters can focus on preparing well with the interview questions, to judge the technical know-how as well as the emotional intelligence of interviewees. 

Recruiters now save 75% of their time as they can focus on the important bits rather than dissipating their energy on scheduling and rescheduling interviews. Given this, what are the recruiters looking for in candidates? Mere technological know-how will not do. Companies deploy a large quantum of resources while hiring and inducing the employees. Technical know-how will only help them grasp the concepts, while employers need to understand if the candidate can coalesce well in the environment. Can the prospective employee judge the situations in this regard staying in tandem with their peers' emotions and act accordingly? Are they a team player? The aptitude to fit into the company’s work atmosphere plays a key role. 

Knowing the difference

The use of aptitude and knowledge tests have been a standard practice across the industry and have become an important and integral part of the overall hiring process.

Aptitude is both technical skills as well as soft skills and gives companies an opportunity to take a more informed decision. The trend amongst recruiters currently is to choose candidates who have a healthy attitude towards their career goals over a candidate who only has the technical know-how. It is important for recruiters to understand the importance of having a balance of skill and attitude in an employee. 

There is no use of hiring a person who is a go-getter and has high professional ethics if he has no technical knowledge. It would also be useless to hire someone who has vast technical knowledge but cannot gauge the social cues or cannot communicate his thoughts in a comprehensive manner. The amount of time and money spent by companies on training their fresh recruits is no secret. These two situations are on either end of the scale and cause a huge loss to the organization.

Recruiters must focus more on finding employees with the right aptitude for the role they are being hired for. Interview questions must be curated in a way that they test the intelligence quotient as well as the emotional quotient of the candidate. While situation analysis helps recruiters understand how candidates solve problems while understanding how they handle their peers in difficult situations; testing for their verbal as well as written comprehension skills helps in analysing the communication skills of the candidate. 

Incorporating questions that are a mix of the above techniques ensure that the recruiter is able to accurately arrive at an unbiased answer to whether the candidate is a good or a bad hire. Many recruiters fail to assess the emotional intelligence and other such exigent soft skills. Traditional hiring models only consider the technological know-how, with degrees and marks as the benchmark to assess if the candidate is a good hire or not. 

While a person’s technical know-how is no less important and is the primary asset of a candidate, the paradigm shift in the hiring model sees more companies now pursuing candidates with soft skills. There has been a shift in hiring based on cultural fit over skill sets. Candidates are assessed on their problem-solving abilities, mental abilities, their ability to work within a team, communication and emotional intelligence. Companies have realised that there is a certain aptitude in each candidate and unless that aptitude matches that of the organization's needs, the hire is futile. 

A cohesive workforce is a valuable asset for any company and mapping the candidates to the job vacancies often marks the beginning of what is known as employee-relationship-management. Whilst a sound job description helps potential employees understand their roles and responsibilities, an aptitude test can help employers identify the right fits and plan their future goals.

Source: People matters

The Best Leaders Aren’t Afraid to Ask for Help

I think of myself as strong.

I see myself as someone who can manage a lot of stress. Who can get a tremendous amount accomplished in a day. Who can work long hours and pull through in clutch moments. Who doesn’t give up in the face of problems, but works tirelessly until they are solved.

I am a leader and most leaders I know feel the same way. We have to — our companies, our employees, our clients, our families — they all rely on us to pull through in the clutch. And we do. Sometimes, in our skillful mastery of pressure, complexity, and accomplishment, we can feel super-human.

But then, on my way to dinner in New York with old friends from high school, my bicycle hit a pothole and stopped abruptly while I flew over the handlebars and slammed head-first into a parked car.

Dazed, bloody, lying on the street, I couldn’t think. Some people nearby came to ask if I was OK, but I didn’t know. They asked if I needed water, but I didn’t know. When I eventually staggered to me feet, they asked if I needed to sit, but I didn’t know.

Looking back on that moment, here’s what I did know with absolute certainty: I am very, very human.

As a leader who advocates vulnerability as a strength, I am surprised to realize that I have, somehow, bought into the notion that I need to be super-human and that any weakness diminishes my leadership.

In fact, I see clearly now that it is precisely the opposite. Not acknowledging our weaknesses is counter-productive for two simple reasons:

One, it’s unsustainable. Life inevitably catches up to us and then, eventually, we must face the inescapable reality that we are human, with weaknesses, flaws, and faults.

Two, it’s poor leadership. Leadership is about connection. People will only follow you, work hard for you, create and risk and sacrifice for you, if they feel connected to you. So here’s my question: Will anyone ever be able to truly connect with you, really trust you, honestly give you their all, if you only reveal to them the parts of you that you think will impress them? How long do you think you can keep that up? How long before they become disillusioned?

In other words, hiding our weaknesses in an attempt to be strong leaders makes us weak leaders. Our vulnerabilities make us most vulnerable when we pretend they don’t exist.

Here’s what’s important to remember: our struggles do not define us any more than our successes do. You are not weak; you have weaknesses. There is a difference.

And from this place of humanness, that can hold both strengths and weaknesses, we can do the most leaderly thing there is: Ask for help.

When I eventually got up and stumbled to dinner, I was greeted by concern and support. My friend Toby got her car, threw my bike in the back and drove me to the emergency room. Pam, Susie, Nicky, and Vicky all came to sit with me at the hospital late into the night.

I was lucky not to be alone that night, and that was thanks to my humanness not despite it.

And needing help — asking for help — is an essential part of being a leader. While I’ve always known this, I’ve also always secretly felt that it’s a leader’s job to help others, not to need help.

But that’s a myth. The reality is that leaders who don’t need help have no one to lead. People feel good when they help. They are inspired when they are needed. They don’t think less of the people they help, they feel more connected.

I am not superhuman. Nor are you. And that’s not only OK, it’s better.

Source: HBR Jan 21, 2019

4 challenges to overcome for an AI-ready workplace

Emerging technology is bringing about significant business results. Here’s how companies need to think about.

According to a research study conducted by Oracle with Dr. Micheal Mendel, an advisor to successive US governments, it was found that the GDP in the US could be increased by 2 trillion dollars if all the organizations adopted emerging technologies. With the rise of autonomous technology, the cost of manufacturing will dramatically reduce. 

Technologies bank on economies of innovation i.e. steps taken to automate everything intelligently. We are entering the last mile of motivation, where everything that can be done by software and machines will be done by them. We are already seeing live examples- Ford uses robot arms to weld car parts. A Swedish dairy cheese manufacturer is using robots to milk cows. Of course, these technology interventions need human interventions from time to time- sometimes the cows get uncomfortable with the machines and have to be nudged around!  This is the key difference between man and machine, and a lesson in learning about emerging technologies. 

The Need for Emerging Technology

When the QWERTY keyboard was introduced to reduce our typing speeds to prevent keyboard-jams, but the future generations would not even need to type. They would simply talk and the computer would do the typing for them. Emerging technology is about new possibilities, new products, and eventually new businesses. Every organization would capitalize on the data they create to turn it into revenue streams. This monetization of data has the power to change lives like never before. 

One company decided to move their accounting function from one city to another. 93% of the incumbents left, and the company recreated the function in the new city with 50% headcount, plus they closed their accounting books on time. Such a humongous business change is simply not possible with traditional technologies. This is a fundamental change in business which needs to leverage a generation shift in computing so as to respond and accelerate change the right way.  

These are simple stories of how innovative thinking can change lives. The impact and cost savings are phenomenal, thanks to emerging technology. The right combination of technology, people and ideas is a must-have to stay competitive. 

Overcoming the Challenges

With the rate of change of technology, come many challenges as follows: 

• Security issues: One of the challenges that organizations must overcome is that of security concerns. 85% of the cyber-attacks have a patch available in more than one year. 75% of businesses are taking three months to implement a patch and 75% of the recent cyber incidents were caused by a failure to patch an attack. Businesses must tackle security issues on priority. 
• Integration: Deploying AI across multiple business functions is essential, and this cannot be done piecemeal. Emerging technology should be an omni-channel initiative, businesses must start doing it. For this, they must embrace an overhaul of infrastructure, processes, systems etc. 
• Change management: Adopting emerging technologies is a huge change, and the whole organization has to be taught to embrace this change.
• Skills upgrade: In a new world of emerging technology, how do you train people to perform with the technology in place? What are the skills required? How do different employee groups (such as different generations) fit in this skill outlook for the new-tech age? These are the questions organizations must ask themselves if they were to get ahead on the emerging technology bandwagon. For example, with AI, recruiting is subject to change, how can companies use technology as a talent magnet for better employer branding? 

Most importantly, the focus in an emerging-tech age needs to be on innovation. Cultivating an innovation-mindset is core to ensuring adoption of technology, and to deriving the advantages that emerging technologies offer. Most companies are starting to explore these areas of MI, but it won’t be long before AI disrupts the very ways of people and organizational management.  

This article is based on a session by Steve Cox, Group Vice President, Oracle ERP and EPM Product Marketing at the Oracle Impact Conference.

Source: People matters 20 Dec, 2018

Managing When the Future Is Unclear

It’s one of the few facts in business everyone agrees on: Without a clear and compelling strategy, your business will fail. From MBA programs, to business book jackets, to the last keynote you attended, you’ve heard it repeated again and again.

Despite this, we frequently find ourselves managing in situations of strategic ambiguity—when it isn’t clear where you’re going or how you’ll get there. Why does this happen? Market conditions shift rapidly. Customers have more choices than ever. Resources are constrained. Executives leave, interims are appointed, and searches drag on. The list continues, and even if your company is nimble enough to set strategy effectively at the top, keeping the entire organization strategically aligned is an entirely different challenge. Your company might have a clear strategic imperative, but your unit or team might not.

In my consulting practice, I work with leaders all over the world on strategy and execution, and they shift uncomfortably in their chairs every time I broach this topic. Strategic uncertainty can feel like slogging through mud. Leaders avoid investments. Decisions are deferred. Resources are frozen. Fear, uncertainty, and doubt drive bad behavior and personal agendas. Even so, companies often succeed or fail based on their managers’ ability to move the organization forward precisely at times when the path ahead is hazy.

The best managers find ways to provide steady, realistic direction and to lead with excellence, even when the strategy isn’t clear. Push your leaders for clarity, yes. In the meantime, be productive. There are three things you can do today that will put you in a better position to manage strategic ambiguity: Take pragmatic action, cultivate emotional steadiness, and tap into others’ expertise.

Source: HBR 09 Jan, 2019

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Connect the Classroom to the world

Virtual Classroom 

A virtual classroom is an online classroom that allows participants to communicate with one another, view presentations or videos, interact with other participants, and engage with resources in work groups. A virtual classroom allows both learners and instructors around the world to participate in live classes to collaborate and interact. The low costs of virtual classrooms are considered to be a major advantage. Learners can save money by not having to worry about travel expenses. Participants also save time since all that is needed is an internet connection.

Virtual classrooms can be used to deliver lectures, or even tutorials online. They are also great options for impromptu meetings and group projects where members need to check-in on progress and bounce ideas of one-another. With the virtual environment, ideas and collaborators are never far away.

The ed tech landscape is full of various software and services which helps to achieve the virtual classroom requirements, We can discuss few offering by major software companies.

Skype in the Classroom

Skype in the Classroom allows students to experience new cultures, language, in or outside the classroom as well. Skype in the Classroom is “a free global community” that allows teachers to collaborate on classroom projects and share skills and inspiration around specific teaching needs. Teachers can use Skype in a variety of ways to enhance their students understanding of a certain topic in a way that will be more exciting and memorable.

After teachers create a profile that describes their interests, teaching specialties, and location, they can begin to create projects that act as a way for teachers to connect with other teachers and classrooms across the globe. On this global platform, teachers can either ask for help or offer help. Skype in the Classroom also provides the opportunity for guest speakers to be present in the classroom without ever having to take a  trip or even leave the office!

Skype in the Classroom offers

• Provides opportunities for students for social interaction with people outside of the classroom
• It offers the opportunity to connect people and objects that are not in the same physical environment
• Allows guest speakers to stay at the office or not travel in order to come speak to a class
• Improved learning strategies
• Greater perseverance, and reduced need for help from the instructor
• Social interaction provides critical opportunities for learners who are learning at a distance
• Internet technologies offer opportunities to connect people and objects that are not in the immediate physical environment. Using Skype in the online classroom improves social interaction and helps to create an authentic peer review environment.

Google Classroom

Google Classroom is a free web service developed by Google for schools that aim to simplify creating, distributing and grading assignments in a paperless way. The primary purpose of Google Classroom is to streamline the process of sharing files between teachers and students.[3]

Google Classroom combines Google Drive for assignment creation and distribution, Google Docs, Sheets and Slides for writing, Gmail for communication, and Google Calendar for scheduling. Students can be invited to join a class through a private code, or automatically imported from a school domain. Each class creates a separate folder in the respective user's Drive, where the student can submit work to be a graded by a teacher. Mobile apps, available for iOS and Android devices, let users take photos and attach to assignments, share files from other apps, and access information offline. Teachers can monitor the progress for each student, and after being graded, teachers can return work,along with comments.

Google Classroom offers

• Create a paperless classroom.
• Design digital team-building activities.
• Solicit daily, weekly, by-semester, or annual feedback from students and parents using Google Forms.
• Share data with professional learning community.
• Aggregate and publish commonly-accessed websites to make sure everyone has same access, same documents, same links, and same information.
• Use Google Calendar for due dates, events outside the classroom, and other important “chronological data.”
• Communicate digitally with students who may be hesitant to “talk” with you in person.
• Share universal and frequently-accessed assignments–project guidelines, year-long due dates, math formulas, content-area facts, historical timelines.

Microsoft Teams for Education

Teams’ rich, persistent conversation experience engages students and makes learning visible to all. Teachers can engage students in different ways with text, video and voice integrations, as well as with emojis, stickers and GIFs. This encourages natural behaviours and allows students to interact socially making the learning experience fun and fluid.

Educators can have enhanced control over their class environment, with the ability to delete posts, mute students or pause conversations. This builds a safe, productive learning environment within Teams. These controls are additional to the enterprise-level security and compliance features present for administrators in Office 365.The new features found in Microsoft Teams aren’t limited to classroom collaboration. Built-in professional learning communities (PLC) Notebooks enable sharing and communication between peers, enabling staff to collaborate more easily than ever before.

Microsoft Teams offers 

• Bring Accessible Learning to the Entire Class
• Connect Beyond the Classroom in a Single Hub
• School Data Sync automatically populates classes with student rosters connected to the school’s information system.
• OneNote Class Notebooks are built into every class, allowing teachers to organize interactive lessons and deliver personalized learning right from Teams.
• Apps integrate into the classroom experience, so teachers can quickly access the Office 365 apps they already use.
• End-to-end assignment management in Teams enables teachers to move quickly and effortlessly from creation and distribution to grading and feedback.
• Teams can bring together any group of students, educators or staff to work together on team or project-based activities.