HSoftware (Human Software): Will to Act (responsible for development of competencies and skills)

(Refer our High Quality Management Encyclopedia at: http://management-universe.blogspot.com/)

(It will be prudent to read my previous write-ups on the subject of "Shyam Bhatawdekar's effectiveness model: HSoftware)" so that this post here benefits you more).

In earlier posts, if you remember, we mentioned that effectiveness is dependent of following four factors:

1. Values
2. Knowledge and information
3. Paradigms
4. Will to act (responsible for development of competencies and skills)

In earlier posts, we described the first three factors of HSoftware model.

In this post we will describe the fourth factor i.e. Will or enthusiasm or internal motivation to perform, act or do.

Internal motivation (or even the internal motivation generated by external motivation) to act is yet another element of "human software" responsible for your effectiveness or ineffectiveness. It is your action orientation. Though actions can be seen being executed but the will to do them, the enthusiasm with which you perform, the internal motivation that propels you to be a doer, are all within your mind. That is why it is your yet another important software (the HSoftware).

One may have all the other three softwares (values, knowledge and paradigms) and that too the effective ones or the correct ones within him, however, despite knowing everything, if he does not use them, does not act upon them or implement them, he will not achieve much. So, he becomes utterly ineffective and has no positive results for himself. The following equations seem to be true:

Great value, knowledge and paradigm + Zero implementation = No effectiveness, No results, No success

Some value, knowledge and paradigm + Some implementation = Some effectiveness, Some results, Some success

Great value, knowledge and paradigm + Great implementation = Great effectiveness, Great results, Great success

You can see here that the implementation or execution is the key factor for being effective and successful. And one can become a great doer only if he has higher inner motivation, the enthusiasm to perform.

Various people are doers of some categories depending upon the extent and quality of their motivation. I am giving below the hierarchy of doers (the percent figures by the side indicate as to how much effective they could be if they were in that particular category of doers):

I did 100%

I will 90%
I can 80%
I think I can 70%
I might 60%
I think I might 50%

What is it 40%
I don’t know how 30%
I can’t 20%
I won’t 0% or 10%

The "I did" type is a self-starter person with highest inner motivation.

Depending on internal motivation to act, people actually start performing because that performance gives some of them meaning in life, to others it is commitment or duty and therefore, they should perform. Some others preform just to get some rewards or praise from others and some are fearful of the consequences if they don't work. There are a few who also come in the category who rebel, are angry or frustrated and they quit.

Therefore, in order to be effective and successful in all the spheres of life (personal, professional, family and society), one must improve upon one's enthusiasm levels and start working.

For improving effectiveness in performance, you need to develop the competencies and skills to a higher levels through a "desire-knowledge-practice-habit" model described at http://shyam-bhatawdekar.blogspot.com/. Just to refresh, in order to achieve a competency or skill, one has to have the desire to do so. Once the desire or will power is kindled, one needs to acquire the values, knowledge and paradigms relevant to that competency or skill and then keep on practicing or implementing. So, in order to gain the new values, knowledge, paradigms and skills/competencies, the desire to do or execute is a must.

The proficiency in competencies and skills could vary from a very low to very high level. Once you have the right values, right knowledge and right paradigms and you have an internal motivation or enthusiasm to act or do, you pick a set of competencies or skills as required to be successful in personal, professional, family and/or social life and start doing them again and again. You practice and practice and practice and you do it repeatedly because you have that internal motivation to perform. You want to excel in your craft because only that is finally useful. But to excel, you have to be damn good at that craft. A surgeon is surely nervous operating his/her first patient (good thing that the patient does not know this fact). A dancer has to rehearse and rehearse in order to give that perfect shot for the movie. An engineer has to get that washer done 100% correct as it is going to fit in that critical place in that manned space shuttle. A cobbler on the street has to stitch the shoes with precision if he wants to attract more customers so as to earn better daily wages for himself. All this requires great expertise or proficiency in skills and competencies and that comes only through repeated performances which in turn requires will or enthusiasm to act or do.

Get you eBook and/or printed book titled "HSoftware (The Only Key to Higher Effectiveness)" online from Amazon.

HSoftware (Human Software): Paradigms

(Refer our High Quality Management Encyclopedia at: http://management-universe.blogspot.com/)

(For more benefits to you, it will be a good idea also to read all of my previous write-ups on the topic).

(You may also like to read "Paradigm and Paradigm Shift" at: http://paradigm-mindset.blogspot.com/).

In my earlier write-ups, I wrote that from my observations of large number of people during my long years of business executive and management consultant life in the corporate sector, I have arrived on an understanding that the "human software (HSoftware)" or "programming of mind" consists of following four elements or factors:

1. Human beliefs or human value structure
2. Knowledge and information base (both rational and emotional)
3. Paradigms (mindsets or thinking patterns)
4. Will or enthusiasm (motivation) to act or execute (responsible for skill or competency development)

Of these, I have already described the first two factors. In this write-up I will describe the third factor i.e. "paradigms".

Paradigms to my mind are not so obvious to people as values or knowledge. Therefore, it needs more explanation.

Paradigms can also be called as mindsets or thinking patterns. Paradigms give the world view to an individual- the way he perceives the world. Knowledge and value also shape up one's world view but despite knowledge and values, large number of people are more led by their paradigms than any thing else.

Paradigms do not get formed only by the correct and comprehensive knowledge or values. Large number of times they get formed by incomplete, inaccurate, biased and traditional knowledge and values. Therefore, paradigms are different from knowledge and values.

There are thousands of paradigms on hundreds of things at any given time in a human being's mind. They dictate one's minute to minute thinking and actions. The results are outcomes of such thinking and action.

If the paradigms resident in one's mind are up to date and correct, his thinking, his direction of actions and the actions will be correct and effective. He is likely to achieve better results in a better manner. Conversely, the people with out-of-date paradigms and in-correct paradigms will find a less correct direction for actions, less effective actions and therefore, the results will not be up to mark. A person who has a paradigm of meritocracy will always try to find job on his own merit and the person who has a paradigm that a candidate for a job is not selected on merits but is selected based on some influential personality's recommendation, will try to find out as to who can recommend him. His efforts could have been perhaps better utilized in improving his knowledge and skills so that he does not have to depend on some one's recommendations any longer.

On the same issue different persons can have different paradigms. when asked to define an ideal family, I get more than 14 to 15 different responses from people. And each one thinks that his response to defining the ideal family is the most correct and each one is willing to argue and fight out to prove how is he correct. Interesting!! Proves the point. They do not understand the fact that every person is unique and every person has his own paradigm of seeing what makes an ideal family- every person has his own "human software", the "programming of mind". What is wrong or right here, we are not making any judgment or evaluation right now. But surely, smaller families make more sense these days than the lager families with more number of kids because of the financial and social circumstances. This social paradigm on family size has already, surely and gradually shifted. No one knew as to when did it happen. But it did happen. That's why no body spoke of having 6 or 7 or 8 or 10 children which was the norm (paradigm) in the days gone by.

So, one should always be on look out for the most appropriate or correct paradigms. As the times change, as the technologies, markets and business processes change, as the social reforms take place, the paradigms in technological, business, family, social and political arena also keep on shifting ahead. Being rigid on a paradigm does not help. You must be be flexible. If the paradigms shift in a particular problem area and you are stuck with the older paradigm on it, you will try to solve the problem with a less effective or completely ineffective paradigm. The older paradigm that you are still holding in your mind might have already become obsolete for the new situation.

There is a serious resistance to change due to the paradigms ingrained in the minds. Rationally you may accept a new paradigm but emotionally you like to go back to your old one since that gives you more comfort. You have been in the old paradigm for a long time and probably, you have been successful so far because of that. Then, you don't like to accept the new paradigm in that area. Way back, I have been working on implementing computerization in a large private limited company in the corporate sector. The chief accountant was accustomed to preparing payroll for the employees of the company manually. Under pressure from all the quarters, the chief accountant had to accept the implementation of the new computerized payroll. Yet, he did not like it. He would come back to me and my team with several problems in the computerized system every day and went on doing it and creating problems for us even after the system was running pretty smoothly for several months. One day I told him that we were withdrawing and stopping the system now on and he could go back to his manual system which he point blank refused. He had got used to the computerized system so much and could experience its enormous advantages over the manual system, it was hard for him to accept going back to his old paradigm of doing work manually. People do change but after lots of unnecessary resistance. Those who embrace the new paradigms early on reap their advantages early on and others who resist lose on them. The ones who are initiators of new paradigms are called "paradigm pioneers". They have to have great courage and trust in their newly invented or found paradigm since the new paradigm has not been tested as yet and they don't know as to how effective it may prove to be in the future.

Switzerland is the well known example of how it lost out the world watch market in early 1980s where it had 80% to 85% share of business and plummeted down to less than 10%. It had all to do with technological paradigm shift from mechanical watches to electronic quartz watches. The investors and industrialists and CEOs of the Swiss watch companies showed the designers of quartz technology the door when they presented them the new paradigm of quartz technology. Then, they displayed their new invention in the world watch congress in USA. Texas Instruments of USA and Seiko of Japan took one look at the new technology and rest is history. Do you know who invented this technology? Many of you may be knowing that quartz technology was invented in the laboratories of Switzerland. Why do you think the wise bosses of watch making companies of Switzerland rejected such a wonderful technology and hung on to the mechanical watches? It is all to do with resistance to change because the old paradigm had given them so much success in the past. Why should they change to a new paradigm? They were after all the world leaders in watch making. But when paradigms shift, every one goes back to zero, the old paradigms no longer work. The past successes can not be extrapolated in the future continuing with the old paradigm. You can no longer sit on the past glory.

People give high weightages to their paradigms. And they think that what they believe in or where they put more weightage, is the most accurate thing. However, they do not understand that their that belief is based on very limited observations or incomplete knowledge or one sided view. Many of the paradigms also get formed in the minds of the people this way. And they think, that is the gospel truth. Problem starts now because that has become their mindset- the thinking pattern and their actions are getting guided by that paradigm. It may lead to disasters.

Americans lost out to Japanese in car making because Americans were following old paradigms of manufacturing and Japanese invented and used new and more effective paradigms on manufacturing and quality. They gave us the famous zeros: zero defects (TQM), zero inventory (JIT), zero breakdowns (TPM).

There are right and wrong paradigms in abundance. But there is no directory or repository of correct and emerging paradigms. One has to be alert about them; look out for them and first of all, every one should know that there is something called "paradigm" which is very powerful and can make him either more effective or less effective.

Get you eBook and/or printed book titled "HSoftware (The Only Key to Higher Effectiveness)" online from Amazon.