Winning Attitude

Sanjay Tiwari’s Presentation – Managing Director/CEO Piramal Glass Ceylon PLC

Mr. Tiwari expanded on the common phrase Win-Win and mentioned it is not that but rather Win-

Win-Win in the context of employee first then stakeholders and then employers..

Topics Covered in Mr. Tiwari’s presentation consist of:

Attitude

Components of Attitude

Winning Attitude

Outcome of Winning Attitude

Winning Team

Winning Attributes

Grooming to be a winner

Human Resources in general – Strength

Human Resources – Gap

System – Barrier

Best Practices

Organization Culture

Transformation

Attitude:

Is nothing but a favor or disfavor towards a person. It can positive, negative or neutral.

Components of Attitude:

Cogitative – Attitude that is a description or Belief in the way things are

Affective – The way we express our emotions or Beliefs

Behavioral – Outcome of our intention to behave in a certain way.

The above three components are intertwined.

The ‘Iceberg’ example highlights that our Attitude, Knowledge and Skills might be known to others,

however, items such as Ethics and Beliefs might be unknown to others.

Winning Attitude:

Is one that exhibits the desire, commitment, determination, discipline, focus, and

willingness to better one’s self or to become the best one can be.

A winning attitude is made up of:

Non-judgmental

Thinking positive

Being creative (“thinking out of the box”)

Clear vision and planning

Practical approach

Self believe

Able to communicate effectively

Decisive

As an example of an incident where a Winning Attitude assisted him and his company Mr.

Tiwari highlighted the following:

Before coming to Sri Lanka he was the group CFO. His company targeted a company

in USA going through Chapter 11 Bankruptcy for acquisition, and the bid offer was

rejected by the Union, Debtors and Creditors and the court ruled against the

acquisition. He was disheartened by this, and pondered the rational behind this and

requested from his Chairman that they retry the acquisition of this company. Mr.

Tiwari’s vision was to have a presence in the United States and through discussions

with his lawyer’s and finally an appeal was submitted. From his perseverance, right

strategy, right communication and right vision he was able to convince the judge

and they have now acquired this company.

Outcome of a Winning Attitude:

Can be an increase in productivity, fostering of teamwork, improvement in work quality,

breeds loyalty amongst self and others, etc.

The moment you start thinking positive you can reach a peak (“you are already there”)

Winning Team:

Are made up of the following:

Right Coach – “Right Leadership”

Right players – selection of employees/recruitment of employees

Caring attitude

The big picture vision is shared

Right position

Good preparation

Communication – if the big picture is not communicated effectively to the team the

company cannot win

Commitment

High moral

Consistency

Winning Attributes:

Are made up of the following:

Leadership and managerial skills

Communication skills

Emotion capacity

Team work

Interpersonal and problem solving skills.

Should have right knowledge and experience

And other key personal attributes like initiate

Creative thinking

As stated by Mr. Tiwari the above mentioned are attributes an employer should be

looking for from their current pool of human capital and also should be looking for in

potential hires to their respective company.

Grooming to be a winner:

Grooming your employees correctly is a must for any organization, and proper grooming of

employees should consist of the following:

Proper induction and employee orientation

Training and capability building

Job involvement and employee engagement programs

Performance Management System

Rewards, recognition and promotion

Knowledge sharing techniques

Involvement in cross function team

Coaching, career counseling and proper feedback sessions

Providing opportunity for experiential learning

Celebrating milestones

Career and succession planning

When an organization hires people it is the expectation that they groom the person for

success.

To further examine the effectiveness of a proper Performance Management System on

employee motivation Mr. Tiwari suggested reading of the book Employees First, Customers

Second, written by the CEO of HCL Technologies. It illustrates how any employee can

change the ‘game’.

Human Resources in general – Strength:

Assess the dimensions of employee engagement that consistently drive business outcomes

Determine organizational intervention areas where senior management/HR support is

required.

Provide team feedback reports to managers across levels for action planning to improve

workplace quality.

Review process of manager education, team feedback and action planning.

Strengths present in Sri Lanka with regarding to human resources:

Team Players

Work Life Balancing

High percentage of Literate Workforce

Changing and Adopting to the market environment effectively

Sri Lankan workforce exhibit emotional and spiritual values

The Sri Lankan workforce is easily trainable and flexible

Loyalty and integrity

Friendly, easy going and fun loving

Human Resources – Gap:

Gaps present in the Sri Lankan (and also other countries) Human Resource:

Migration of Skills

Flexible work attitude in overseas employment, however, in Sri Lanka that same flexible

work attitude is not the same

Lack of entrepreneurship

Preference for public sector employment

Slow decision making

Preference of relationship over profession

Avoidance of individual accountability

System – Barrier:

Barriers to an effective HR system:

Complex and old labor laws which take lengthy processes

Past Privileges

No provision for performance pay

Unions

Constraints on termination

Best Practices:

Best practices that should be employed for an effective human resource process:

People strategy linked to business strategy

Effective career progression

Employee engagement Earning sharing scheme

Aligning compensation and incentives with the success of the organization, etc.

Organization Culture:

It is the collective behavior of humans who are part of an organization and the meanings

that the people attach to their actions.

Culture includes the organization values, visions, norms, working language, systems,

symbols, beliefs, practices and habits

Transformation:

What can an accountant do to encourage effective winning attitudes and thus HR

Go from Micro thinking to Macro Thinking

Change the mindset from a debit and credit view to a holistic view

Be part of a solution aimed at organizational change

Become a team member and not work in isolation

“To win, we need to change ourselves first…”

Panel – Mr. Shakthi Ranatunga – Group Human Resource Director MAS Holdings (Private) Limited

Three aspects that Mr. Ranatunga believes are very relevant to organizations in not only a local

context but a global context:

To win an organization has to create the right environment, and in order to do that you need

good leadership that can provide clarity and vision and the direction that the organization

needs to go to. In this context very few people can work in uncertainty and an organization

cannot prosper until this ambiguity is clear.

Most people have the skills and knowledge they just lack the leadership and direction.

Having a can-do attitude is very good but an organization’s workforce needs to have the

skills and be able to constantly refresh this (as change is coming in rapid pace).

Winning should be an obsessive habit of organizations and their workforce. “Winning is an

always thing.”

Panel – Dilrukshi Kurukulasuriya – General Manager of Human Resources – Diesel and Motor

Engineering PLC

When it comes to winning there is no one winner in this whole game, its about excelling yourself and

remind oneself to have a positive attitude in order to get positive results.

Understanding the Attitude of her workforce in key for her company, therefore, before any key

decision is made an understanding of an individual’s attitude is paramount.

When you look at a high commitment individual you see that they go beyond their work scope and

more often than not they change their organization context to good.