Unfiltered: The CEO and the Coach is a must read for all CEOs and directors on the boards of companies. Written by Ana Lueneburger and Saurabh Mukherjea, this book, as the title suggests, touches a delicate spot that few in the corporate world are willing to recognise and accept. Can we ever do things wrong? Can we deal with people in a different way? Can we remain focused on our personal lives as well as our jobs? Can we accept that people are different and that we cannot impose our standards on those we work with? Is my team comfortable working with me? Is my team putting up with my behaviour only because I am their CEO? There comes a time when we should all stop and ask ourselves these questions.
The authors represent the CEO and the coach and it is a very bold book because Saurabh is willing to accept that he needs coaching and is comfortable putting down on paper his vulnerabilities that could be addressed through professional interactions. Moreover, the world would get to know the real Saurabh.
Ana is the coach and uses several techniques of psychoanalysis to know the real Saurabh. Would Saurabh have been willing to have a coach? Probably not. In a way he was forced to do so because he admits that his board was not willing to give him a bigger role of being the top man for the group even though he was for the investment bank. This is when he was told to be coached.
When one reaches the highest level in the company at a young age, there are certain common traits that can be observed. Call it the exuberance of youth or lower level of maturity, but leaders have something in common. They are very demanding and push themselves to the limit. That’s not bad enough as it is a personal choice. But they expect the same from everyone else and blow their fuse if things do not go their way. This is where the empathy levels are low as they cannot understand people. They assume that if they are putting in 200%, everyone better do the same. Or else they can leave the company. This is a common situation in companies.
What is really remarkable about this book is that Saurabh is willing to accept his shortcomings and make the changes. One can say that if Saurabh can do it, so should others, because it will make a difference not just to their lives, but also those of the people who work with them. The coach speaks in one chapter and the CEO does so in the following one. They talk about how each one felt about the project that was taken on. They had mainly virtual meetings, and had few personal interactions as they were located in two different countries. When they meet with their spouses in Mumbai they do not talk about the project but this helps in bonding. Now Saurabh uses the technique of bonding with his employees through offsites, games, etc, as it makes a big difference.
Ana takes us through the process of coaching, which involves hearing out the stakeholders and also participating as an outsider in meetings with team members, which helps to form a view on the style of working. Saurabh gives his part of the story and how he benefited from the reactive and proactive coaching he received. We also get to know something about his personal life; and with quotes of Dire Straits, Bob Dylan and Simon and Garfunkel thrown in, one can know his taste in music.
Often we justify our mistakes saying ‘we are human’. But we need to go beyond in building teams. There are also some lessons thrown in that can be more from a standard textbook but are necessary to remember. These are rudimentary thoughts, such as taking care of your health, investing emotionally in professional relationships, ensuring we have circuit breakers to check our emotions, giving people time and space, and so on. All these are important rules to follow, though they may be hard to implement all the time. We need to ask ourselves basic questions like—what do we believe in and what is it we really enjoy?
The message we get from this book is that we need to be very selective when choosing the people at the top. We need to have psychometric tests to evaluate them because business is not about just growing the bottom line. The leaders need to take their people along. A bad tempered boss who causes his top management to leave is not desirable in any company, because the enterprise suffers. Based on these tests, coaching has to be recommended, if not enforced, so that the emotional quotient of these leaders improves and there is more harmony in the organisation.
This book needs to be read by all board members who need to take a call on whether their CEOs need coaching. One should not be surprised if the 80-20 rule will apply.
Unfiltered: The CEO and the Coach
Ana Lueneburger & Saurabh Mukherjea
Penguin Random House
Pp 304, Rs 499
No comments:
Post a Comment