Retaining Workhorse by applying Johari Window

My first seminar session in the college was a surprising and interesting one. One day a new staff who had good industrial experience all of sudden requested our class to come forward with off the studies session which would be useful in our carrier. I volunteered myself immediately to take a session on Personality Development and directly went to stage with out any preparation. A few days back i went through my father's training materials on personal management and development, which had an article about Johari window and how to use it for increasing motivation and productivity.



Now i will discuss here about how to use johari window model to motivate and retain your subordinates(workhorse) to increase productivity and obtain result with out wastage of effort and resources.

People is the most important resource for any knowledge based industry and companies go any length to a attract and retain the best talent available in market to survive in the industry. Hence value of the employee with skill and knowledge has been increased tremendously over the years contributing to large scale attrition due to job hoping. And companies try to add those people in their pay role expecting work output and result to increase their bottom line profit and market share.

But these high price tag has also changed the mindset of present day knowledge worker top to bottom. Nowadays people never think of long tome employment in a single company for stability, but to hop many companies to attain top post and get rich quickly. They are desperate to reach the top at any cost, even sacrificing their families, friends, relatives and health. This creates a lot of self esteem or ego inside them, which makes them to put forward "I" before any thing else. Ones individual concerns, priorities, problems, achievements, issues, etc takes a center stage and rest companies policy and work ethics takes back seat.

Since employee's have become money minded companies have also remodeled themselves to provide faster patch to climb the corporate ladder for talented employee's. But that can be achieved by very few lucky people and rest will be languishing at nay middle level position complaining about every thing at workplace that acted as an obstacle before their carrier. But the reality is not every one can reach the top and many has to stay below their one's own glass ceiling like pyramid structure.

Now the interesting part of the discussion is people who reached the top can't run the company alone but they need the co-operation and contribution of the other people to sustain his throne for a long time. Now taming those employee's (workhorses) working under the leader and turning them to concentrate their efforts on common goal is most challenging and as well as crucial strategy.


More will be discussed ..........................

Magic of Chak de India - Lessons for a Team Leader

After watching the movie Chak de India, in which Sharuk plays a role of Kabir khan: coach of Indian womens hockey team. He was one time Indian Mens hockey team captain - who was branded as traitor by media for missing a crucial penalty stroke against arch rivals Pakistan.

He takes up the new role as a coach to reclaim his lost glory and reinforce to the people he is not a traitor. The challenge as a coach of a womens hockey team was immense from start to finish. The film director clearly portrayed the interpersonal conflicts between the team members, supremacy, fighting, discouragement by their family members and fiancee and even the hockey board. As a coach sharukh delicately handles all the issues and brings in team spirit, discipline, hardwork, training, cooperation and motivates them to over come women factor.

Lessons to be learned by a Leader from the film:


During initial training he instructs clearly to all the new team members that they all are going to represent the country and not their respective states. He was also harsh on them to portray himself as a common enemy, so that they will all unite against him and help each other. And it did worked and all the girls united to get rid of him as coach.

He gives more emphasis of team work than individual excellence , even punishing at times to make them understand. He also gives more empathize on teams need more than individuals need and changes positions of key experienced players, which causes resentment among them and they name him "Tuqlak - a king who dominates his subjects".

His belief is courage is more important than skill for success, which he demonstrates that by acting as a mere spectator, when the girls go on a rampage against a gang of eve teasers in a restaurant. He mentions at the end that this is the team he wanted and they can achieve any them if they cooperate among each other.

He also convinced the board to approve the participation in Australia, by arranging a match against the men's hockey team. The Girls team lost the game by narrow margin but the mens team impressed with the performance of the women appreciated in hockey style.

In Australia the first match they played was against the home side in which they lost by a wide margin. As a coach he encouraged and motivated the team to overcome the initial defeat to carry on the game by winning the remaining matches. Thus the underdog Indian team reaches the final in style for the amazement of spectators.

Before the final match he instructed both his forwards to better cooperated on field to get result. In the finals the inevitable happens as underdog Indian team beats title favorite Australian team in penalty shoot out to lift the title cup. He returns to his previous home to regain his lost glory.

The whole film has many important concepts for a Team Leader to understand and deploy over his subordinates to motivate them to overcome obstacles toward goal.