Sharmili Adhikari
Director, People & Transformation at FTI Consulting
Sharmili is a Director in FTI Consulting’s People & Transformation practice supporting organisations succeed by inspiring, enabling and mobilising their people to be more resilient...
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- Change Management Strategies: Techniques for effective organizational change adaptation
- Leadership Development: Building strong leadership skills in teams
- Emotional Intelligence: Enhancing interpersonal skills for workplace success
- Diversity and Inclusion Practices: Fostering an inclusive workplace culture
- Future of Work Innovations: Preparing organizations for evolving work environments
Meet the mentor
Tricky Workplace Situation Handled
- The second email where Brian is not demonstrating a negativity bias, rather, showing appreciation for the collective achievements, empathy on the setback and a way forward to collegially work and mitigate the issue. This drives engagement, while also boosting performance
- Open and transparent communication helps weed out misunderstandings. Further it helps employees understand their value, especially when credit is given where it is due. By not playing favorites, manager can communicate how they value all team members. Lastly a feedback loop helps seek, receive and give feedback for improvement, in the flow of work
- Yes. Leaders should commit to collective success through a collaborative and not a top-down approach. Risk taking is key, while not compromising on integrity and values. They need to show empathy and care. Building trust is key through candor in communication. Of course no one is born a leader- it requires effort, intent and practice
- Great leaders enable others' success and are not only committed to their own. They inspire and empower others, not dictate outcomes. They show empathy and resilience and influence with candor and tact. They build trust and not take away from psychological safety at work. They are authentic and humble
- Contribute to toxic environment- 1. Top down communication 2. Shooting down creative ideas 3. Playing blame game 4. Lack of open feedback in the flow of work 5. Not sharing credit / recognition of team efforts Measures to prevent : 1. Give credit where due 2. Celebrate team wins and share feedback for improvement 3. Show greater humanity and empathy in communication 4. Encourage a sharing and open work culture
- I would advise them to look within and start from themselves. Fostering psychological safety helps eliminate workplace toxicity and leaders would need to ensure they give the platform for team members to share ideas, speak up, make mistakes, ask for help, all without the fear of repercussion
- 1. Finding common ground 2. Working on shared goals and outcomes 3. Empathy- trying to understand where the other person is coming from 4. Be more aware of own and others' interpersonal style
- 1. Remember that the enemy is just another person 2. Hook one to the one thing that you like or respect about the other person 3. Turn them around 4. Separate the person from their work personality
- My first reaction would be to think we cannot work well together. But so long as I am able to separate the person from the work and I respect one or two things about them, I can get a respectful partnership going. We may not always see eye to eye but we can be honest and upfront about our perspectives, table them and try to find a common ground. We may not be friends but we can be professional work colleagues that collaborate on a shared goal
- I am sometimes struggling to separate the person from the work persona and that is important. We may not like each other but if we respect certain organizational values and are collectively passionate about shared work outcomes we can collaborate well, even if we don't clique together!
- Be a problem solver rather than a critic. It's easy to play the blame game or choose to refrain from active collaboration with people we don't like. But if we demonstrate empathy, have a solution mindset, be adaptable and communicate with authenticity, we can uncover things about another person- hooks to anchor to, that will create mutual trust and respect. Further focusing on shared goals can help drive collaboration
- Working in silos is never productive in the long haul- it can lead to toxic work cultures where individual KRA/ KPIs are more rewarded over collective sales goal. This environment is not conducive for psychological safety, relationship building or teaming. To improve the situation, one needs to ensure to work on individual and collective goals, ask for help where needed and support others. They should set time to connect as a team and take stock of group/ department sales goals while also working on individual goals. Also customer is king and hence to effectively serve them, building internal relationships, leveraging support and working together becomes important
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- With good relationships among team members, there is open and active communication and listening, sharing of ideas and support on efforts. Group goals are given priority over individual goals and teams encourage each other for attainment of shared goals. They work as one team and celebrate collective success and motivate one another for a good job done. The customer comes first and with team members boosting department goals, sales figures are higher and achieved faster. You walk alone you walk fast, you walk together, you walk far
- 1. Team building exercises 2. Open communication and active listening 3. Shared goal attainment 4. Instant celebration of success and motivation for failures 5. We vs I thinking, no siloes
- Yes, in my line of work, teams succeed. We have clients to build solutions for and group consensus, brainstorming and decision making is key. We learn from one another and leverage collective insights and intelligence. We support one another, understand other's needs and interests and team up to get the job done
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- 1. Have a casual "hi"/ chat to know the person better- even if virtually 2. Get to know about others' likes/ dislikes/ interests and intrinsic drivers and motivations- be personal, talk beyond work 3. Support your internal network when you can and leverage their support as required 4. Maintain lasting relationships- don't burn bridges, it is a small world 5. Be interpersonal and organizational savvy!
- Transparency, collaboration (not not hyper-collaboration such that it delays decision making!), speed over perfection, alignment to existing processes, actively listen
- Connect company, team and personal objectives for measurable results. The two parts are objectives- long term goals and key results- way to accomplish goals.For every objectives there should be 3-5 key results. an objective is considered done when 70-75% of results are completed. this helps maintain company vision, record and track progress and also act as great methods for performance reviews
- Transparency in the workplace can do much to combat misunderstandings, ambiguity in instructions and detrimental rumors.
- High internal communication mitigates crises.
- It is important to define company goals among employees.
- 1. have a plan 2. maintain a perspective 3. flex between empathy and assertiveness 4. communicate 5. follow a vision 6. track progress 7. speed over perfection (agile)
- 1. strategy risks 2. operational risks 3. financial risks 4. geopolitical uncertainty 5. cybersecurity
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- First scan the market and competitors for any risk. then build plans to mitigate them should they arise. mobilize task forces if necessary to contain an emerging risk or mitigate a crisis situation, share learnings with the larger team to prevent a resurgence of the same risk
- Ensure to free up time on calendar every day to tackle strategic tasks. Delegate operational/ tactical tasks if required. Work in the mornings on strategy and build time later in the day to take up/ review tactical tasks. Challenge self to join the company meetings to shape and influence strategy. Lead a task forces to build strategic acumen. Attend industry meetings/ conferences to be aware of the strategic directions adopted by leading companies