Who are Grmtech Leaders?

(I am no more associated with Grmtech)
Before writing about website download speed and sales comparison let me clarify some of the queries thrown at my mailboxes. Today I took a four hour class on “leadership” (the ppt will be made available through this blog). After the presentation even my colleagues wanted me to define my role as “Grmtech Leader” (If Grmtech interests you, contact me at ajiissac(at)gmail.com as we are looking for Innovative minds.). For all those who do not know about my involvement with Grmtech, I think I am the first employee for Grmtech and I have completed over 40 months with Grmtech.

Yes I accept that the position title sounds a little out of box to many. “What does a Grmtech leader actually do?”. Let me try to simplify my role as a Grmtech Leader (this is for all those who have asked me these questions over 5 times 🙂 ).

Grmtech leader is like an Internal VC (Venter Capitalist) who invests company money in teams. Grmtech is like a VC firm supporting and motivating different teams (you can call them “companies in a company”). Grmtech leader is supposed to help the teams with proper resources and guidance. This was a simple (rather not so complex) definition of a complex (rather not so simple) position. The work I do as a Grmtech leader includes:-

• Culture and climate check: Since Grmtech is innovation centric, we need to make sure that 75% of the Grmtech smells like a university than a company. We also create the required positive energy zones for innovations. I handle some 6 to 7 innovation centers and I am very happy to say that almost every member is involved in innovation. We encourage attempts that bring success but failure is never discouraged.
• Salary and Incentive policies: We hire artists and want to pay them on the basis of performance; thus incentive designing is a crucial part of our culture. We are trying to make it as stable as possible by adding improvement tabs. Our target is to make sure everyone working with Grmtech for over a period of 3 to 5 years should take home a 6 digit salary. We can do that, as we are a product based company and not a service oriented one (one right idea can change everything).
• Innovation centers: This is one of the tasks I like. All Grmtech teams run innovation centers and I encourage innovation through these centers by broadcasting it. Also, I award one innovation every month (awarded only once the idea is implemented, ideas without implementation is considered dead in Grmtech). Soon I will be awarding the members with maximum failures or attempts too, as experiment is the source of innovation (and many of us needs to be trained and explained the need of failure).
• Human firewall: I try to act as a firewall for the company by filtering out bad entrants. In other words, I am involved in the hiring and firing process (At Grmtech we do not like to fire anyone but constructive feedbacks are given to help the team members).
• I was(am) a programmer: Since I had spent some good time in programming, I help teams with technical issues too (nowadays, I do this very rarely as we were able to develop really good programmers for each team). I am generally a part of final discussion where major decisions are to be taken.
• I was(am) a marketer: I try to think like a customer and thus I like marketing. KISS and Creative destruction are my major tools while developing or reviewing products. Online marketing is still a new domain for many of us, I keep sharing my experience with everyone involved.
• Documenter I am converting myself as the chief documenter for the company where we can document the Company pulses (both high and low). We use a wiki based documentation platform.

There are more points but it is already 1:30 am (IST) for me and I think I should give my body some rest. If you think that you are born differently, then you can contact me at ajiissac(at)gmail.com and we can together enjoy the luxury of experimentations at Grmtech (success is a guarantee, Read point 7).

Before I go to bed here is a snippet (1 slide) of the presentation on “Leadership”:-

1. Be a Mentor not a boss.
2. Make yourself approachable.
3. Make Grmtech a university not a company.
4. Appreciate your team members.
5. Give the credit and take the blame.
6. Optimization of work.
7. 1 Experiment a day keeps no success away.

(complete and detailed presentation will be uploaded soon)

Update on 23rd Dec 2006
I took the second class on Leadership and summary goes like

1. Self discipline – Instruct vs Inspire
2. Transformational vocabulary – Optimism Ratio
3. Battle Vs War – Winning both but not focus the battle.
4. Problems or communication gaps – 90/10 principle
5. Guess ?

(This was an instant class before we press the restart button for Grmtech. We are shifting to our new office on Jan 1, 2007.)