Running the Full Marathon

Sunday 19th Jan 2014 a big day - completed a marathon at Mumbai along with my wife. It was truly an amazing experience. After having run the Airtel half 2012 I wanted to go for the full marathon even registered for one in Jan of 2013 but did not participate for the lack or perhaps no preparation. This year I wanted to do one. I was not sure if Bhawna will agree to run this and I did not want to push her into running a full as this was not going to be easy. When I talked to her around June 2013 she nodded and said let us register and then decide later if we really want to do it. I took it as a yes and went ahead for the registration.

Time passed by our target was Airtel Delhi half which was scheduled for Nov and time it better than the last time. Our practice started around August, continued for a couple of days leading up to 5 Km and then for a couple of weeks we got busy with the regular work. Mid Sep I thought it was high time that we should get serious and we started all over again. 21 KM in 10 weeks looked a doable plan. There was also a full in Gurgaon coming up on the 15th of Dec. I thought that we will do Airtel and then register for a full only for training purposes and will run around 32 K. We needed at least seven over 21 K runs and at least two over 30K as per our plan. The training went on good.

Luckily I engaged couple of my office friends to form a small running group. They all registered for the Airtel half as well and we did some good runs together. The prep was going fine until we came to know that the dates for Airtel half were pushed to Dec 15th. This was not as per our plan, nevertheless the Gurgaon marathon was preponed to Nov so we needed to switch but unfortunately we could not try the longer than half in Nov as our training wasn't enough. So we finally decided to run both the half and then do a longer runs alone. Our practice pitches were standard. For less than 5K Jasola sports complex was the place to go, for around 7 to 12 K we preferred Jahanpana park and for 12+ we chose Lodhi garden and the roads to India gate. I must say I enjoyed the training, getting up early sending kids to school and out for our runs.

We did the Gurgaon half on 24th Nov the timing was better than before but still short of our goal of 2.30. We wanted to get that in Airtel half. Airtel half took place on 15th Dec. It was really a cold morning I still remember we were shivering at the start line but a few Kms down cold made no difference. We completed very close to our target time. And between these two runs we
also did a 25k at Lodhi garden/India gate. Now we had to do a practice run for over 30 K. We had exhausted all known routes and wanted to try a new one. We decided to run from our house in South Delhi to my in-laws place in north Delhi. This would be a good 25K and then we could do another 5-7 K on our way. We set out for our longest run on 27th Dec around 8.30 AM running on the busy ring road. To our surprise there was a cycle track for most part which was available for running. It was a great experience running the entire stretch past the Rajghat, Red Fort, ISBT etc. With these training runs under our belt we geared for the big day. Unfortunately for 10 days post our longest run we were out on vacation due to winter break of kids, we had an awesome time but No runs. This led to the final week before the run on 19th. The last week we did close to 25K over 7 days.

Finally the day arrived we left for Mumbai on Friday 17th evening by train. We had our friend Anuj and his wife joining us for the run. We reached on 18th and checked in the hotel. We were out by 12 PM for the expo center for bib collection. We took a local train from Andheri, this was my first experience on a Mumbai local. We reached the expo center by 1.30 PM collected our bibs and also met Anuj and Namita there. We then went for lunch along with them to Colaba Causeway. Anuj mentioned a good restaurant. We had a good lunch and did some shopping. Came back to hotel early, ordered food and went to bed by 9 PM as the next day had to start early by 3 AM.

So here was the D Day which I longed for almost two years. We woke up around 3 AM got ready. I had asked for a taxi at 4 Am and cab was there on time. We reached Azad maidan - starting point for the race by 5. It was still dark. We did some stretching and got into  our running zone. There were flutters in my stomach, I was reminded of all the trainings that went in to make this day happen. I was also fearful for myself and Bhawna. This was a distance we had never done before “what if” was the question & I really had no answers.

Well finally the race stared at 5.40 AM, we were lined up in the section C and walked to the start line and stepped on the start at 5.45 AM. My goal was simple to be able to complete it with no injury in less than 6 hrs. We began our race at a good pace, it was still dark when we left Azad maidan. Around 3000 people were there for this race hence we had to steer our way through the runners. Once on Marine Drive the breeze got better and we had broader road to run. We joined the 5 hr bus and carried with them till about 10K. The dawn was setting in and things were looking very positive. Even at 6.30 AM people were out of their homes cheering on the Mumbai streets for us. I saw an old lady must be in her late 80's sitting on the roadside waving at the runners. At about 15 K mark we entered the sea link a beautiful site with great winds blowing, very scenic view. Around the middle of the sea link I could feel some cramps in my stomach not a good sign for any runner, I slowed down to walk and asked Bhawna to continue running but she refused and walked with me, about a KM down the pain eased and we started running again. We completed our half in around 2.40 which was as per our target. At about 26 K the sun started roaring, someone had told me that you should try and cover as much distance possible by 9 and now i could see that it was so true. We switched to run/walk by 31 K, this was the longest we had done until now. Also the uphill at Malabar hill was pulling us down and we decided to walk that stretch. The people on the street were still cheering us but we were almost out of energy. The last 6 KM on the Marine drive were the longest ever. The scorching sun was ablaze with no trees to gather shade from and the refreshment counters also dried up. Our run/walk switched to walk/run. Bhawna seemed to be in better shape taking lead. I was trying to do the catch up. We knew that to keep to our target we had to take a stretch run. Last three KM we decided to give it all we had and forget the last 39KMs (easier said than done) the feet refused to lift up, only mind was pumping in energy. Then I saw 1000 meters mark, wanted to run fast but could not, finally at 500 meters mark gave myself a final push to finish within our target time. Finally we did it. I almost rolled down to my knees 50 meters inside the finish line onto a side and took a water bottle from a fellow runner. The feeling was overwhelming. Bhawna got some cramps and we went to the medical room for some first aid. Then we collected our prized possession our medal. We limped our way back to the taxi and got back to the hotel.

 

This truly was an experience to remember, all the time post 36K I was thinking I will never do it again but now two days later I feel different. I feel addicted to running. Many people ask me why would anybody run long distance and why would anyone travel or spend money to run a marathon. All I can say is that you have to experience it fall in love with it. The sense of achievement and satisfaction you get after running a marathon cannot be explained in words.

Mumbai we might see you again next season until then keep running..!!

My First Half Marathon

I think the most difficult part of completing my first half marathon was to be able to make the decision to do it. This wasn't easy; I could barely run a couple of 100 meters a year before. But somewhere towards the end of 2009  I decided I will run and complete the 21K. With the kind of travel my job involves I could never follow a routine. There is another thing that always bothers me, somewhere I have a feeling that I am very good at starting new things or projects but lose interest somewhere in middle and do not bring them to a logical conclusion. Finishing the half marathon was something I wanted to do to prove me wrong and break that feeling.

I had announced to all my family and many of my friends that I am participating in this and my kids also were looking forward to this event. My daughter sure had doubts believing that her lazy father could really do it. Many people helped me reach this goal, the first and foremost my family specially my wife. She believed more than I did that I will be able to do it. Second my friend Andy who is an avid runner. He has many marathons to his credit and no ultra is long enough for him. Last but not the least another friend of mine Ajay who gave me the final push when I almost decided not to run almost 45 days before the race as I was not able to practice because of the terrible business schedule I was following..

What went worse for me is that three days before the race my right foot developed some pain and it got bad as I used to walk. This was the worst nightmare I could have had and it was coming true. I decided to take it slow and be on complete rest so that I can recover. The pain did not go off though it did get suppressed with the pain relief medicine.

Finally the Day arrived. The longest I managed before the race was 2 hrs almost 15K thrice in last 3 months. The additional one hour or 6 KM sure was going to be tough and I knew the challenge at hand. I did do a lot of reading on the internet on what to do and what not to do. I reached the venue with Dharmendra (my bro) at 6:25 AM. The race was to start at 7:30 AM; the foot was better but far from fit. I did not want to miss the opportunity to run as then I would have had to wait for another one year for this opportunity. I met Andy and couple of guys at the ground. The weather was great and the arrangements looked good.

We queued at the gate and at 7:30 the gates opened, there were about 8000 runners. I reached the start line in less than 2 min and started running at my pace. I am not a fast runner at all and all the reading I had done suggested that I should just run at my pace and not look at how fast or slow others are running. I did just the same. Till about 5K I was having no issues the foot was hurting but just a little. I could ignore the pain. As I neared the 7K point the pain started coming back. Running at Raj Path was good. The sight was great running towards the President's house with the India Gate in the back drop. There were so many people around young and old. I was just amazed by the stamina that many of the old people were exhibiting. I did catch up water whenever I passed through a station also grabbed a energy drink once in a while. I completed 10K with not much difficulty other than the foot getting worse from bad. I knew if I slowed down or stopped the pain will take over me and it will be very difficult to run any further hence I continued. I decided at about 12K to stop at a medical station and use a pain relief spray, the station came at 13K but there was no spray -as luck would have it. Because I had slowed down to catch up on the medical station hence the pain just took over...then I decided to completely overlook it and started running. After two three minutes the pain settled down to the level it was before. At 16 Km there was a flyover to cross; the things started getting worse from thereon. One I had only done 15Km before that target was over, second the pain in the foot was catching up and third the sun was up and the fatigue was catching up. I decided that I was no way going to give it up now being close to the target. I ran at the slow pace and did not walk as I knew that after walking I will not be able to run again. As I entered the 19K I was totally drained out the last two Km were looking nothing less than the 21K. I kept on running. I could see many people coming in may way and I was crossing them pushing some of them aside keeping my pace on. Then I saw the 500m mark and felt that I was close, my body had almost given up specially my foot but then there was not looking back. I had to complete in less than 3 hrs that was the target set and timing certificates were to be given to all those who complete within this time. I did not want to lose to 3hr target, and then suddenly I saw the finish line and the clock on the top mentioning time lapsed as 2:50:39. At that time I stepped on the finish line.

Yes I did it..in less than 3 hrs. The feeling that I was able to keep the commitment to myself was great. A sense of achievement and fulfillment was all over me. I walked into the ground and met my family...my wife, kids, friends. I could barely walk but wanted to enjoy the moment with them than to let them know the pain. My wife clicked a couple of pictures of the glorious moment. I had some fruits and lots of water. Then I sat down, my foot was in bad shape and I could barely walk. I decided to call it a day and limped my way to the car parking.

Driving home as I looked back at the road that I ran on, it almost seemed like a dream....but then the journey like this always starts with a dream. Chase your dreams they may not be as far as you think!!

Leading Internal teams with Trust, Transparency and Flexibility

Trust, Transparency and Flexibility has worked great with our external customers, to me if this is something that the external customers buy from us then there is no reason to believe that it will not work for my internal customers. In the note below I have tried to draw a congruence of this philosophy to my internal management style.

I will try and explain each one of the three but before I start let me lay two golden rules - management or no management "Respect the Individuals". If you cannot respect an individual be it in your personal or professional life you have lost it as a leader before the start of the game.

Let me now start with Trust, this is the first and the foremost thing in building a winning relationship. Many times I hear people saying that a person has just joined hence he needs to prove his credibility in due time to have the trust of the manager and the organization. To me this is weird. The reason that he is onboard after qualifying the multiple rounds of interview itself is enough proof for him to be trusted. Unless he does something that breaks his credibility there is no reason not to trust him. People live in a fear and a non-trust environment for many months that actually deters their performance and lessens the appetite to risk taking. Also with trust comes delegation. Delegation does not mean to take decisions yourself and then have your team agree to it which I see many people doing; to me it means to give the power to the right people to even make some wrong decisions while helping them learn from the mistakes. Believe in your coaching and the people’s capability, you will have to trust your team with deep waters and leave them to swim.

Hence rule 1 - Trust your team day one unless proved otherwise.

Transparency - To me transparency means to be able to admit and share the good and the bad with your team. I personally believe that basic nature of all human are alike, if failure hurts me I am sure it hurts other as well and the pat on the back make all of us feel good. Having transparency creates an environment where people can admit failures and not be afraid of trying something new. Also this helps in identifying the issues early and reacting proactively. Be open to admit your mistakes in front of the team, this will surely help them open up. There is nothing wrong in not knowing, what is wrong is not knowing and not asking. Create an environment where people can stand up and ask basic questions. It is difficult to admit that we do not know basics or to overcome the fear of what others will think, but if you have accomplished that in your team you are a winner and you have a winning team behind you because the answers to the most complex problems in the world lie in simple basic questions.

Rule 2 - Create an environment that helps people admit the mistakes and encourages them to ask questions without any fear.

Flexibility - As I have already mentioned in one of my blog below, flexibility should be viewed as an organization’s or a managers open mindset to listen and adapt to changing environment by enabling framework to re-define the processes. It is very important to be receptive to change and new ideas. The change is inevitable the question is - can you impact the change in a positive way. I do believe there is no one correct way of doing things, someone could any day discover a better way of doing things than what you did in the past, trust the team with the flexibility of trying new ideas. Balance flexibility to have a positive effect to create a learning environment.

Rule 3 - Be flexible to accommodate innovation but not at the cost of making the exception a rule.

Before I end I must state the second golden rule that I defined in the first paragraph. The second golden rule is "Listen Listen Listen". Unless you listen to your team and the people around you it will be difficult to make the positive impact. Many times you may not have an answer to the questions but a patient listening works wonder!!

Happy Leading.

Flexibility & Process Adherence

One of the major issues I see with the organizations today is the misuse of one of its biggest strength "Flexibility". Flexibility to me does not grant an authority to individual or teams to grow above the defined rules or processes. It should be viewed as an organization’s open mindset to listen and adapt to changing environment by enabling framework to re-define the processes. I today see people living by exception or may I call it that the exceptions are becoming a rule. At the pace we are growing this is not sustainable and at some point very soon will become unmanageable.

I might be wrong but I believe that once a process or a rule is defined that should be followed. A friend of mine told me once when I was visiting US that there is nothing right or wrong it is only legal and illegal as law states. I often hear people say that following a process or a rule is a deterrent to creativity which I personally do not agree with. I surely agree that certain rules or boundaries might create constraints that may not be able to accommodate your imagination but then rather than breaking the boundaries why not work to recreate or redefine them.

If any single process is not working this does not go to say no process works, think of the way the traffic would look like if all were trying to be creative on roads it would be a disaster but then we have build racing tracks (redefine boundaries) to accommodate for the more imaginative folks. To me there is no binary answer to the question “Do Rules deter Creativity". There will be situations and roles which do not have scope for creativity typically in operations hence the need to be strict with the process might be higher in certain situations.

I believe that rules and processes are a must have and should be followed. The only other thing we need is a framework around accessing the productivity/usefulness of the process at regular intervals and a framework to enable redefinition at agreed intervals.

We all know that change needs time to settle in hence need to be very cautions on the frequency of change. Let us not make exception in the name of "Flexibility" and live by exception as a rule.

The Next Gen - Gen Y

One thing which I think has always created a debate on the Gen gaps is our inability to respect the individual and our insecurity to change. I have no doubts that Gen Y will bring in significant changes to what we do and more so how we do. This will be independent of if we want it or not, this change is inevitable. The challenge is how to be part of the change wave and impact it in the right way with the perceived knowledge we have.

I would like to share a small incident that happened yesterday night, my dad has been telling a story about a young man and how he was chased by a lion in a forest and how he managed to get on top of a tree and the lion finally found and ate him. He must have narrated this story to many children from my generation until now. Yesterday when he was narrating this story to my 3 year old son the question came up from the young lad..but grandpa I have seen in Discovery Channel that Lion cannot climb the tree only monkeys can so how did the lion catch the man on the tree!! My dad laughed that off but then it was a valid question…though small incident but captures the curiosity and knowledge that the TV brings in to kids today. We can laugh but the fact is that the old story now needs a CHANGE.

What you perceived as risk may not be a risk anymore and when Gen Y does not carry that in their risk register you tend to label them as not being careful. The positive start of the change will be by being receptive to ideas and respecting the thoughts of the Gen Y.

The question not only is Do We Get Gen “Why” but “Do we want to get Gen Y”

Is Quality a Burden?

Many times I hear people in the organization say that quality initiatives are a burden; strangely enough I heard a comment that quality is overdone in our company. The question I thought was could quality be overdone ever? This brings me to the basic question of what is quality. To me quality is value for money for the end user.

But we have to agree that something is missing in our quality initiatives. Quality delivery needs strong process backing be it ITIL/ISO or BS7799. Another way of putting the same is the fact that the quality cannot be implemented but can be brought by ensuring the right processes within the delivery organisation. Quality is an output. I feel the need is to focus on process implementation and adherence. Why do people feel that processes are burden or overdone.

1. The underlying objectives of the process are not clearly communicated.
2. The buy in from the people who should follow the process is not there.
3. Processes are not designed to suit the delivery organizations.
4. No clear benefits of process adherence are listed.
5. No rewards and recognition are linked to process oriented delivery.
6. Process implementation starts with a big bang but the continued motivation is lacking.
7. Our approach to process implementation may need improvement.
8. Change comes at a cost; we might not want to take the risk.

We need to understand that all the delivery people in our teams are too busy with the day-to-day operational activities and if we ask them time for these initiatives they would not be too happy about the same but if can sell that the process would help them reduce their work load or help in smoother delivery they could be interested.

May be we are dumping the processes on our Delivery teams i.e. selling without the need. As a common man I might buy your product without my need knowing what a great salesman you are but this in no way ensures that I would use the same. Hence before selling let us create a need and have people ask for the same.

At the same time we need to understand that our sales organisation needs to have these certifications and quality standards and that is the reason why the management wants to have it. This indicates that sales organisation realizes the needs and thus has a focus to fulfill their needs; the same need identification has to be done for the Delivery or support organizations.

Here is how I feel we should go about the same:

1. It is difficult to create a need with all the individual support people so we should start with us first and then be responsible for selling the same at lower levels.
2. Before talking about processes we should understand the problems being faced in operations.
3. Match the problems being faced with the process solution.
4. Sell the solutions to the problem and hence the process
5. Ask for team’s full participation, they should not nominate any other people and themselves not be active participants.
6. If the teams say they do not have the time to participate hence want to nominate others believe me he/she is not convinced with your idea. Take more time to sell the need.
7. If time is a constraint tell him you would match his pace but persist with working only with him.
8. Mark the Key performance indicators for the process being worked upon.
9. Measure the results and reward the team not only for excellent delivery but also for process centric delivery.
10. Have the Delivery manager share his success with other Teams.

The bottom line is let's not do selling without need creation or else we won't have satisfied customers internally and externally. The process should not be “must have” but “must use”.

No Fear of Non-Performance

I strongly believe that "No fear of non-performance" in any organisation is directly proportional to no motivation or low motivation for performers. When the times for IT were great and all were busy with projects buzzing I felt less time was being spent on identifying the performance and non-performance. This resulted in some decisions which though were not wise but still worked as the business was great and even one or two slips could be overlooked which is not the case now.

I tried to analyze the reasons for No fear of Non-Performance and the one which looked directly onto my face was No definition of performance. Who to blame for this - organisation, managers or the employee. For sure it cannot be the employee and organisation is nothing more than the people so it means that the managers themselves are responsible for no fear of non-performance of their subordinates. Again as I always say it flows from the top. But are the managers not willing to do this i.e. set good performance criteria; sure they would love to it, so where is the issue. For this analysis we will need to move a step up - have the good performance criteria been defined for the manager himself, if not then I am not sure how he can set the goals for his team and he may still set them but cannot be sure that his and his teams goals are aligned.

Above could be one reason the other I can think of is lack of willingness or competence to challenge non-performance. It is very essential to challenge not only the team but ourselves too. Customer for sure will ask for performance hence if the manager does not challenge non-performers then the customer will have to do it each time, which I do not think is a great idea.

Coming back to the point of No fear of non performance being directly proportional to low or no motivation for performance, this is so true. End of the day all want reward and appreciation for good work but when the good and bad are equally appreciated then that is actually a disaster and a negative motivation for the performers.

Please do not try to read non-performance as making mistakes, making mistakes is fine and a step in learning process. Non-performance is failing to meet the desired expectation level. Even non-performance is not the problem as long as the people have the right attitude to be able to realize the need to move into the performance zone. The danger is "No Fear of Non Performance" or "Unwillingness to move to performance Zone" and the lack of clarity to define difference between "Performance and Non Performance".