In an emerging market fraught with economic, financial and political uncertainty, industry leaders are constantly asking how to retain talent and engage them for benefit of all the stakeholders involved. The Nassom kickstarted its 20th edition of the India Leadership Forum with a session by leadership guru Marshall Goldsmith, aptly named “Building leadership, partnership and engagement in your organisation.”
Goldsmith, rated the top leadership thinker in the world today and coach to executives of top-ranking corporations around the world said that leadership and partnership boil down to the individual and not the people around the individual. A follower of Buddhism, he incorporates the philosophy into his coaching methods and teachings to create simple ways to achieve goals and feel engaged.
The session, meant for anyone lacking an impetus to shake off the inertia in their lives, covered aspects of engaging self, finding peer coaches and active and passive questioning methods to improve one’s position in a matrix with long-term benefit as one dimension and short-term gratification as the other.
Goldsmith said, “In coaching adults, if they do not care, do not waste your time in trying to change them.” He said it is essential to train those who wish to change themselves, otherwise the outcome is nothing but paperwork, questionnaires and no change in the way the person feels or does things. For measurable success in the path to change, one must constantly and very frequently review small goals that one sets for oneself, and find a peer who acts as a coach.
“The key,” Goldsmith said, “is to constantly ask yourself what you can do better to make yourself happier and successful. When you don’t find reasons to be happy or engaged, the loser is not your company or your family, it is you.”
In prompting participants of the session to pair up with unfamiliar faces and ask questions helped set an example of the kind of personal and professional goals one should set in life to get into the “mojo” (a positive spirit that guides us in what we are doing, starts from the inside and radiates to the outside).
Goldsmith ended the session with a story about unloading negative emotional baggage. “Remember, every decision is made by the person who has the power to make it. You have two ways of making things work for you - change the world, or change yourself. If it is something you cannot change, make peace with it,” he said.
