Influenced by the book “Governing Business & Relationships” by A Parthasarathy
The law of Karma states that every current action produces a future effect. In philosophical terms the effects could be good or bad karma, which when it fructifies, either gives one happiness or sorrow. In the business or organization context, future success is defined by the proper actions done today that are aligned with the long term strategy. The ideal action is made up of three essential constituents: Concentration , Consistency and Cooperation. A practitioner of these three disciplines has the appropriate action to command success in his field of operation.
Concentration - Concentration is the art of focusing the mind in the present. The human mind has a natural tendency to slip into worry of the past or anxiety for the future. Concentration is the technique exercised by your intellect to hold the mind on the present action without allowing it to drift into the past or the future. At the individual level, concentration helps one to develop peace within himself. In the organizational context, concentration is the focus that is needed to achieve long term goals in the midst of chaos created by the changing environment or priorities. Productivity at work is directly dependent on the employee's focus on the job. Less is he is distracted on his own (web surfing, whatsapp etc.,) or by parallelisation of tasks that are needed to meet conflicting project requirements, the more productive he will be at his job. At the business level, lack of focus could come due to conflicting metrics : meeting internal goals to keep upper management happy visa-vis the actual customer/business requirement. Lack of focus or concentration results is lower productivity.
Consistency - The second discipline is to be consistent in what you do. Having set an ideal to reach for, a goal to achieve, your actions should flow in that direction. You need a strong intellect to overcome mind's distractions and keep the actions going in the set direction. This technique of channeling your actions towards the goal is consistency. The practice of consistency lends power, strength to your action. At employee level consistency in performance is needed for his success. At the business level, predictability in product execution,consistency in product roadmap and business strategy is crucial for the success of the company.
Cooperation - The third discipline is cooperation. To achieve an objective you need a spirit of cooperative endeavour. Even for an individual goal to be met there are usually external conditions that need to be conducive. A spirit of cooperation would enable the external conditions to be conducive. In the business context, it is difficult to be successful and productive in a business without the active cooperation of colleagues. Over time, teams that are not cooperating with each other not only bring the company down but themselves.This principle applies to companies, communities and countries. In the current situation, coming out of this pandemic, every nation needs cooperation from their people and people of other nations.
Maintaining the above 3Cs of disciplines of actions, spell success and productivity in any field of endeavour, for an individual and for companies.
Why This Matters
Organizations promote talented individual contributors into management roles, yet 60% of new managers fail within the first two years-primarily because they never transition from doer to teacher. When managers fail to develop their people through focused, consistent, collaborative coaching, companies face cascading costs: higher turnover, lower engagement, stalled innovation, and ultimately competitive disadvantage. In knowledge economies where human capital drives value creation, your effectiveness as a manager-teacher directly determines whether your organization builds capability faster than competitors. Ignore this teaching imperative, and you'll perpetually scramble to hire external talent while your best people leave for organizations that invest in their growth.
Leadership in Practice
When the new CEO assumed the company's CEO role in several years ago, he inherited a culture characterized by internal competition, siloed thinking, and inconsistent priorities that had cost the company mobile and cloud leadership. The CEO recognized that transforming a major technology company required transforming managers from taskmasters into teachers. He personally modeled the three disciplines: concentration (laser focus on cloud-first, mobile-first strategy, shutting down pet projects that diluted focus), consistency (every leadership meeting began with customer stories, embedding customer-centricity into decision-making), and cooperation (replacing stack-ranking performance systems that pitted employees against each other with collaborative team metrics). The CEO invested heavily in manager development, requiring leaders to read Carol Dweck's work on growth mindset and practice coaching conversations rather than directive management. He created the "Manager Excellence" program, teaching managers to conduct regular one-on-ones focused on learning and development, not just status updates. The measurable results validated the approach: the company's market capitalization grew from $300 billion to over $2 trillion within seven years, their cloud platform became the second-largest cloud platform, and employee engagement scores increased by 23 percentage points. The transformation wasn't driven by brilliant strategy alone-it succeeded because thousands of the company managers learned to teach their teams to think differently, focus intensely on customer problems, and collaborate across traditional boundaries.
Leadership Framework
**The 3C Manager-Teacher Framework**
**Step 1: Establish Concentration Through Clarity**
- Translate organizational strategy into 3-5 clear team priorities (no more)
- Block 2-hour focus periods on team calendars for deep work
- Eliminate low-value meetings and cascade only essential information
- Shield your team from organizational noise that doesn't impact their objectives
**Step 2: Build Consistency Through Visible Patterns**
- Schedule recurring 1-on-1 coaching conversations (never cancel these)
- Document decision-making principles and reference them when making choices
- Publicly recognize behaviors that align with stated values
- Address misalignment immediately-don't let exceptions become norms
**Step 3: Design Cooperation Into Work Structure**
- Create shared team goals that require interdependence to achieve
- Implement peer teaching-rotate who leads learning sessions
- Make collaboration visible through shared documentation and transparent progress tracking
- Reward collective achievement more than individual heroics
**Step 4: Practice Deliberate Development Conversations**
- Use the 70-20-10 model: 70% learning through challenging assignments, 20% through coaching/feedback, 10% through formal training
- Ask more questions than you answer-develop thinking, don't just transfer knowledge
- Connect daily tasks to skill development: "This project will build your stakeholder management capabilities"
**Critical Success Factor**: Manager-teachers must first master these disciplines personally before teaching others. Your team learns more from observing your behaviors under pressure than from listening to your words in calm moments.
**Warning**: Avoid the "teaching trap" of believing development happens only in formal sessions. The most powerful teaching occurs in real-time coaching during actual work-the hallway conversation after a client meeting, the quick debrief following a presentation, the collaborative problem-solving when obstacles emerge.
Leadership Takeaway
Starting tomorrow, shift one recurring meeting from status updates to learning conversations-ask your team members what challenges are stretching their capabilities and how you can support their growth. The manager-teacher mindset begins with recognizing that every interaction is either building capability or wasting potential. Your legacy as a leader won't be the work you personally accomplished, but the capabilities you developed in others that continue creating value long after you've moved on. Make teaching your primary work, and execution will follow naturally from capable, focused, collaborative teams.
"Before you are a leader, success is all about growing yourself. When you become a leader, success is all about growing others." — Jack Welch, former CEO of General Electric
Ramu Kaka's Wisdom
A good manager solves today's problems; a great manager teaches others to solve tomorrow's. The tree that provides shade didn't grow in a day-neither does a team that thinks independently.
Reflection Questions
- When was the last time you canceled a one-on-one coaching conversation with a team member because something "more urgent" emerged—and what message did that cancellation send about your actual priorities?
- If you observed yourself managing under pressure this past week, what would your team conclude about what you truly value based on your behaviors rather than your stated intentions?
- Which team member has the potential to exceed your own capabilities in a specific area, and what deliberate steps are you taking to accelerate their development in that domain?
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