Mental Health; It Exists!

In your career, you need mentor/s. Some might disagree, but I feel it is important to have mentor/s in your career. We normally don’t accept us to be guided, but, there are times, when you need to go to someone and share your thoughts and emotions who would listen to you, show you the right path no matter how silly you might sound,

or how lame you might think!

In my journey so far, I have been blessed that I have come across both people leaders and business leaders. But I have come across only a handful of people whom I

consider as my mentors. I would not reveal their names today. But today, I will tell you about a few things that I have learnt from the mentors and which I am still trying to adapt-

As a nation, we hardly care about the timing. And trust me, this is one of the reasons why outsiders find us weird as we don’t live up to the timing commitment. I have seen one of my mentor exercising this commitment of timing. When he said the meeting would start @ 2.30, that meant, 2.30. Not a minute late. We, the people, taking for granted 2.30 as 2.45-3.00 gradually started learning that time sense is important. It’s a habit that you don’t build on a day (like, we are used to 10-15 minutes delay as normal). I started working on this. I wouldn’t say I have succeeded, but definitely I have improved.

I have one mentor who has taught me how to make things simple. Breaking the big problems into smaller parts, taking small pieces at a time, convert it with strong rationale, convenience and present it spontaneously as if you created the problems and you are the only one with the right solution. Still to date, we debate on so many things. He is a very busy person, but we have discussion over phone starting after midnight even and lasts up to hours. I feel lucky that he responds and he listens. Another quality that we all need to develop. We jump to conclusions and make a statement before hearing all the things. But my mentor keeps his calm. Sometimes, I might be talking no sense, but he listens and figures out the right guidelines for me. He is a person whom I feel scared of, but he is also the person with whom I speak my heart out. Mentors earn a position in your heart no matter how hard you try not to give them the spot and keeping it professional, and you always try to be someone like him/her.

I have also come across a mentor who has been outstanding with numbers and analysis. I have seen him doing number crunching and analysis single handed, which is a task of multiple person. He has always been relaxed, never expressed pressure in the job, and always spot on with the numbers. The love for numbers grew from there. As a business professional, we all should love numbers. It does not come automatically until you start understanding the number and start projecting the future. He made such statements about the industry that came true years later that he predicted earlier. And to date I see his assumptions are coming true. He also has the knack for general knowledge, science and innovation. He is one passionate guy who would say things upfront in your face whether you like it or not. But, trust me, whatever he would say, there is a huge possibility that it might come true. Speaking up front and challenging the status quo is very difficult to do, and to possess such quality is like having a treasure.

One of the mentors has taught me the importance of taking ownership with freedom. Everyone loves freedom, but with ownership? When you have freedom but connected with ownership, you start loving things you do. Not everyone can enjoy freedom with ownership. But, growing the sense of ownership is a big step to become successful I believe. It is tough, but once you are on the ride, you will complete any challenges thrown towards you. And eventually, you will start loving that.   

 You must be wondering, how many mentors I have, right? Well, I am yet to complete a full cricket team. But I believe in this journey I will be able to cover a good portion of the stadium whom I consider as a mentor. My definition of mentor is a bit different. I believe, no one is perfect. But you should take the best out of someone, and if that person allows you the time and coaching to develop the best quality, he/she possesses I consider him/her as a mentor. But that does not mean, everyone is my mentor as everyone has got some good qualities. I also have some bench-marking. If you can’t cross that, you are not in the list.

I will give you an idea of bench-marking on some other time. But the examples I have given are 100% right. I consider these qualities are important, and till this day I am learning from them and I am indebted to them that they are open to me whenever I have asked hep from them. What do you think? Do you need a mentor? Or already have one?

On the fishing note, I would say, I am still in the journey of learning, unlearning and relearning things. It is never too late to find your google in career who can steer you and build you for future. It’s a never-ending process. But the sooner you understand the powers of your mentors (whom you consider as your mentor/s), the faster you should start learning from them.  

If you have already found your mentor/s , you can share the qualities you have/are trying to adapt from them in the comments.Your opinions are appreciated!

#MainulAhsan

#thothnotes

This time the topic is going to be more helpful for the new joiners or the fresher to a greater extent. Every time a new joiner or a fresher join, a common thing you get to listen as a fresher in many of the cases is that – You don’t know the right way to do the work.

True! How come a fresher would know the perfect way to complete the task? If he had done that, he would have become an experienced person. We, the experienced sometimes forget that once we were also new to the industry. We better give some time to any resource to make him/her stronger in his area of work.

Having said that, for the new joiners, there are some observations that I would like to share with some examples:

I have taken a lot of interviews so far, especially for the entry level position. In the interview session, I have seen people just used so fancy words in their CV, of which they don’t have any idea. Literally, no idea or why this is being put in the CV. I can clearly understand that, they did not write their own CV, but the overall CV presentation was really good. One thing that we forget, when something is beautiful, it draws our attention and for that they really need to own whatever they put in their CV. Another issue is with the misspelled words. In few cases, they wrote marketin instead of marketing and they could not find what went wrong. This might be a lame example, but, to me spelling is important and more than that your CV should be important to you. You should double check if there is any issue with it or not.

In Bangladesh there is an upsurge in the CV writing industry. My LinkedIn home page is flooded with posts regarding CV writing and why it is important. In many cases, it seemed that, if you don’t write a CV from a professional, you will not get a job. I have a very bad notion for these people who are always marketing that how CV writing is becoming a dire need to get a job. Please, STOP!

If you can use internet and have some basic knowledge of computer- You would find a lot of CV template available for free download. Go, check them out and use it if you find it appropriate. You can take help from the seniors, colleagues in getting the templates, but remember, whatever template you use, make sure you are cross checking the spelling and the inputs that you provide, so that Mr. Rahman does not become female while copying and pasting from others format.

Now moving on to joining to a new place. Before joining to a new place, try to gather some basic information about the workplace if possible regarding the office time, attire, basic office norms, culture of the team, etc. See, in our childhood, when we used to move to a new class, before starting of the class we use to go through the new books out of curiosity. This curiosity is good. But, as we grow up some of us loses this interest. Because, in cases I have seen people coming in proper formal attire in the interview, but, on the very first day of the joining –wearing a polo t shirt. See, I am not against wearing polo t shirt, but, you need to know how others in the office are coming up. So, you should get along rather drift against it. This is basic!

While working in tobacco, I found that it is not a sin to smoke with your boss or higher management. But, I took this for granted. But, after moving to other places, I found having a smoke with your line manager was just like a cardinal sin. And I had to go through some humiliation for this as well. Well, things are changing and the companies are becoming more liberal. But, I also made a basic mistake! So, try to gather some knowledge on office culture as well.

As a new joiner, we should be more open to listening rather than talking. From university to job place there is a big difference. Whenever you are in a job, you are getting the salary against some assigned task ( in most of the cases, you do more than what was described in the JD) . Meaning that, you are given the responsibility, and you should grow accountability. You might have done so many things in your life, but, whenever you are in a job, that is affecting the lives of others and the society as well. So, take things seriously and let your work speak for you. Now, how can you let your work speak for you?

In any workplace, you are likely to get the seniors/colleagues with you. First, start learning the process with an open mind. As we all know, in every organization, they use many jargons, so, get used to it. It is something related to the process and you will be using these frequently. Try to gather knowledge, and go through the previous works done by your predecessor so that you get some clarity on the work. If you are in sales job, the best place to learn the job is the field, in the real workplace where you get to learn the real business. This is basic!

So far I have been working in sales and marketing and I have learnt the basics from the market, from the front line soldiers, the experienced distributors, competition and even from the back office people. The secret to it is developing a good relationship with the right stake holders and have an open mind. Remember one thing, the faster you get along with your workplace, the better for both you and the organization.   

In MNC there is a term called “honeymoon period” meaning when you join, you get some breathing time to grasp the business. In this period, no question is a wrong question, some operational mistakes are ignored, you get to know your market. This time is the best time to learn. From day 1 , you should utilize this and you don’t get this opportunity ever again when you have passed a significant time of your probation.

The honeymoon period is not always applicable for the local organizations. They want you to deliver from day 1. There is a very low margin or acceptable error and you will need to roll up your sleeves and start getting things done in a proper way from day 1. Get your basics right to deliver as fast as you can. Remember, you are always replaceable the moment you stop adding value to the business. Business does not run with emotion, it runs with numbers and results and every business has the same motive- generate profit. So, be clear about this and act accordingly.

No matter if you are selling product or service, you will be getting a target. Targets are such that you can achieve, or there might be times when you can’t. Every company sets their target with a growth projection. If the industry is declining, your target might get lower than the past; or else, you need to ensure growth to gain market share and profitability. For anyone working in the sales, must get a good grip on planning out how to meet the targets. The companies operating in full cash business have to maintain daily performances. Cash business operation is much safer from a business perspective. On the other hand, due to the nature of the industry, some might have to run in the credit operation. They need to make sure about the credit management and hitting the weekly/monthly numbers. In this case, with daily sales management comes the credit management. For anyone, joining in the work be it cash operation or credit or even mixed operation must know how transactions are made with the company in details about all the processes. Let me give you an example why this is important from my life experience.

I moved from total cash operation to another industry where there is heavy dependency of credit due to the nature of the business and the national practice is as such. Anyways, back then I did not have clear idea about bank guarantee and the company finance was sending mails regarding the bank guarantee renewal for some of my distributors and I talked to finance and they said it is important to make renewal of the bank guarantee within the time. The conversation made me understand that, bank guarantee is a tool, that needs to be renewed, But, even back then I was not aware that, if you don’t renew the bank guarantee within the timeline, it is nothing but a piece of paper. One of the distributor had his bank guarantee getting expired on the same day. I got a call from the sales director on the progress of the BG and I told him that, distributor has confirmed that he would do the BG renewal. My sales director ( by the way, he is a fantastic human being and one of my mentor who taught me how to take ownership and how to be down to earth all the time!) made me understand the hard truth that if it does not get completed by today, 4mln worth of BG (Bank Guarantee) will turn into a simple paper by tomorrow morning and company will be facing the consequences.

I got into the car and traveled 60-70 kilometers meeting the distributor and grabbed him and took him to the bank and by then it was almost 4 pm and the banking was about to get closed. Along the way, in the car, I was thinking that if I did not know how significant bank guarantee is, I would have been in trouble. I am thankful to my sales director for making me understand the importance of the BG in simple words. As I came from total cash operation, I literally had very little knowledge about BG and other banking instruments for credit operation. I was about to make a grave mistake but, fortunately the BG was renewed on that very day; I scanned the documents to the company and in the end, the day was saved. See, I did not cover my basics well. So, be very attentive to your operational details which can make you a seasoned professional.

I know I am taking much of your time to explain so many things. I will close the topic with the last example.

If you are working in sales and distribution, you must be aware of the fact of route restructuring and adding new outlets to the operation. I learnt this in the hard way. It is one of the task that looks good in excel, but in reality if you don’t have the total grip on the geography, socio economic understanding of the market and patience it is very difficult to execute a good expansion plan. In my early days, when I got the first outlet restructuring exercise, I shared the required data with the distribution point and I was expecting that being experienced people they would share the initial draft and I would check back if things are OK. While approaching the deadline, I asked my team to share the updates and I was happy getting the files from them. Even when I started checking, I found the outlet numbers are ok, brought new outlets to coverage with SR and everything. But, When I started checking the cluster names, something did not add up. The team had a meeting with a map, putting pins in the markets to identify the new scopes and how these were going to be covered. And then the shit hit the fan!

The team was focused on meeting the numbers, not focusing on how the routes are going to be drawn or the right scopes being taken into consideration, will that be possible for the SR to cover that geography in the right time to cover the targeted outlets, if the vehicles they are choosing for distribution making sense or would that incur more cost for the distributor, was the frequency set in the right way that would justify the volume and overall, does the expansion numbers make sense and giving the profitability to the distributor with additional investment. I can recall for the next 4-5 days, for me with a big map and the team, I needed to solve the questions that came into my mind.

Sometimes we had to go outside of the general guidelines, as things were not making sense due to distance, potential volume and logistic. It was a hell of a ride and trust me, since then I have gained more confidence because I did the overall RTM exercise by myself with the help of the distribution team and my senior colleagues, and I asked the right questions. I was so confident, that next year I took the lead for not only my territory but also for the area when it came to outlet expansion! Since the first time, I have loved doing it. Because, once you complete the right route plans and you are convinced, you immediately see the impact of increased sales or improve on the costing that affects the business positively.

So, roll up your sleeves and get your hands dirty (in a positive way) to make it happen. This is basic!

Once you build a strong foundation of the basics of the business and the process, develop a strong relationship with the right stakeholders and open to learning new things from different sources, you will do amazing!

Learn the basics by heart and shine on…

#thothnotes

#mainulahsan

#understandingthebasics

#thirdtopic 

 Line Manager- The term you get to know once you step into the professional mode. This may not be always applicable for the Startups, but applicable in most other cases.

Entering a job after University is a big shift. A big shift in your approach towards life, approach towards family and friends and specially you find a new- YOU. Once you start crossing the career path, you get to define yourself in a better, composed way.

In your journey, the person who can shape you up, is your line manager. He/She is someone who would drive you for the professional success and help making an invisible personal relation to improve your output.

In my journey so far, I have come across a few line managers, who are responsible for my growth, achievements and failures as well. You can never expect to get a good line manager always, but it is better to have a line manager than having none in the initial days of your career while you are playing the role of “Manage self”

Now tell me, did you always have the line manager you always wanted to have? I did not. Sometimes you get a good line manager, sometimes you get a bad line manager. But, end of the day, my realization is that, you get to learn a new thing from everyone. You know- even a broken clock shows the right time twice a day!

Having a good line manager makes you more accountable, innovative, involved; on the other hand, having a bad line manager can make you more calculative, more demanding, individualistic. Both the traits provide you some perspective for development. And you need both the things. You can never be a good boss to everyone all the time. Sometimes, you need to be cruel to be kind. And for that, you need to have some experience with both the good line managers and the others.

When I started working, I was told that, Line manager is your new guardian who would look after you. And, when I met my line manager, I was asked how my family was doing. This simple question from my line manager actually changed my perception. After university, you don’t normally expect that, someone who is not your relative or close would be asking you about your family. But, this simple question from my line manager made that impression that family is important and I might be out there away from the family but there is also someone who is interested to know about me and my family.

Family is always a very sensitive thing specially for Bangladeshis. Once someone shows interest about family; He/She gets a special corner (this is my personal belief). When my line manager asked me about my family and I replied about it; since then, I always have tried to know about the family of my team members. I have seen it really works. Because, I was really happy and satisfied when being asked about my family; so, I believe putting someone in my place would have got the same feelings in most of the cases. One of the reasons is that giving your team the sense of feeling that, you as a line manager is friendly and caring, you can move mountains with your team if you can sync well.

We all know who is a good line manager. But who is not? In my opinion, someone who is unable to guide you towards the right direction of working or motivate you enough to go extra miles is not a good line manager. I don’t see any industry where there is less pressure or challenges. From your point of view, you would say that you are facing most of the challenges. If even you change your job, you would still say the same. Challenges are always there, but you need someone who can steer you in these situations. And that is where your line manager comes into play.

Some of the qualities of a good line manager that I have seen are-

§ They are open to suggestions and create a more friendly approach

§ They are concerned about your development which might come in a hard way, but their concern is for your development. Period

§ They give you the freedom to explore new avenues and let you speak your mind if that is against his own belief even

§ They will not tell you, but show you or guide you to accomplish any task

§ They will trust you and you will feel that.

§ They will never threat you, but will give you warning if you are not following the right direction

§ They will give you the due credit you deserve and will stand for you when the time comes

§ You don’t need to say, but they will always be trying to give you the benefit and spend a good amount of time behind your development

§ They will share their both their joys and failure, will appreciate you on your achievement and will share your failure 

What do you think? Your thoughts on this will be appreciated. Remember, If your line manager is not helping you to develop, and giving you only freedom and benefits; and you are happy with it, you are actually wasting your time and potential. Either he is not capable to handle you, or you are in the wrong place. I gave the example of family in the beginning; because, I strongly believe a good line manager will care not only about you, he/she would be caring to your family as well. Whom I consider as good line managers, have portrayed this trait in my career.The ultimate good line managers create the environment for you, where you feel safe and flourish. period.

Now, let me share my views on the not so good line managers. In my eyes-

·        They are rigid, not open to suggestions

·        They will tell you/ instruct you to complete a task, but will not be showing you the path ( I guess even they don’t know ho to complete the task)

·        They will not trust you, will try to validate your statement/ actions from others

·        They will make you do so many things, but will take the credits if you succeed and give you the blame if you fail

·        They will try to give you some unimaginable deadlines and expect you to complete the task. You can do that, but, even you would know, no quality output will be there

·        They will not be good in calculation, they will focus more on their instincts, where they should focus on the data and the ever-changing dynamic business landscape

·        They would think everything with cost. To them, you are just a cost center. They would want the best from you, but in return, they would always think to give you as less as possible  

o   They would always try to consider you as his//her competitor. Bad line managers always have the inferiority complex, which make your life miserable

·        Their approach is always demanding. As a line manager, you should be demanding. But not always!

·        They would always try to impose their thoughts on you, and expect you to be aligned with his/her thought, no matter what garbage they say/plan.

 What do you think of this? Can you relate this in your case at any point of time?

The best part of having a bad line manager is that, you don’t have to use your brain or involve to a greater extent in any of the work. But I want to use my brain and get my hands dirty. The worst part in my eyes of having a bad line manager is that you stop learning and you stop challenging the status quo. These are two vital points for any business or individual to progress.

You can never decide who your line manager is going to be, but you can always decide whether you are learning from him or not. In my case, I have seen, under a good line manager, you give extra effort and you also take the ownership of anything assigned to you. And under bad line managers, you are concerned more about delivering the work (irrespective of the quality of the work) and you also become more individualistic, taking yourself in a shell, where you don’t want a team performance, and drive blame game whenever possible. Because, your line manager is also doing the same. In this type of situation, focus on yourself. As you know, you will not be developed from the organization, try to invest yourself in learning from all other places.

But, you know, as a true business professional, you need to see both sides of the coin. I consider myself fortunate enough to see it. The world is not a rosy place, and you should know it. The earlier you know, the better for you. Whether you will become a good boss or not, depends on what types of line managers you have come across and how you have learned from them. It is always a choice that you make- Whether you want to learn or not. Be it a good memory from a good boss, or a learning from a bad line manager.

But, from my side, What I have always tried to portray is showing the respect to my line managers. Because, end of the day, your career, increment, development depends on that person. If he is good and you are learning, respect comes automatically. But, if he is bad and you have stopped learning, please generate some respect for the position which he is holding and generate some artificial respect for the person (as long as you are there in the organization). If you can’t take it further, start exploring new opportunities.

just like you can’t choose your parents, you can’t choose your line mangers and remember your boss is your boss (be it someone who expands your brain cell or kills your brain cell)                                                        

·These are my thoughts only. I am not saying I am right or wrong. Please ignore if you don’t like it and share your thoughts if you like the writeup for more to come!