Working in Teams/Organisation

One has to suppress oneself to other’s temperament or working style to do work in teams and get along with people. At times, one feels very strongly about certain things, or wants things to be done in a particular way, however, in the interest of overall output one must allow people to experiment and come with new ways of working.

The oe thing that one should avoid is receding ground to a bully or tolerating arrogance and sloppy work. A bully should be handled as a bully. And arrogance should be squarely dealt with at the first instance.

This is no doubt an normal case scenario, crisis scenario definitely needs situational leadership and people are required to implement strategy as directed.

Another connected point that I have been thinking about is the dress code and other formalities companies use while interacting with each other. Reflexively and Objectively, I think that dress codes are not required. One should be smartly turned out but wearing formals every day to work is important. The culture is reinforced by the quality of interaction of people in the company and not by the superficial dress code. However, I think having a dress code is a least painful position to ensure people are turnedout smartly in the office. But still dont like wearing neckties on shirts..

How do you contribute to the nation/society?

This is a question that has been baffling me and I assume a number of people through decades.

Last year, Abhishek Gupta, my friend from college who studied at Upenn afterwards, posed this question to P Chidambram after the Wharton lecture. Chidambram asked him to join politics. He rationalised that Indian politics needs good and educated people like him. He said Abhishek should see that all is not wrong with politics and educated and clean people like Mr. Chidambram himself are able to get better of the dirty politics. I must definitely say that this did enthuse us to look at politics as a long term career but didnt really convince us.

Over the time now I realise that Mr. Chidambram gave a very narrow way to go about contributing to the nation. It is simply not possible that everyone has the same aptitude to go out and play the dirty game. Moreover, the way to contribute should be broad enough and inclusive. Restricting it to joining politics is bound to keep a lot of people away. There should be room for everyone to contribute.

JRD Tata once said that he wanted to join politics after hearing speeches of Nehru at Bombay but decided not to as it was not he could be good at. He wanted to contribute where he could make a difference rather than joining the agitrators in jail. The key lies right there.

It is in pursuing excellence throughout your life. It should be simply excelling and being the best at your chosen profession.

One cannot think of a situation where JRD Tata, Narayan Murthy would have not been involved in their profession. These people contributed immensely to the nation by excelling in their chosen fields. Same goes for many people from different fields – Dr. Trehan, Vinod Dham, Amartya Sen, Rajat Gupta, Satyajit Ray, Raj Kapoor, and so on.

The best part is that now is an age where intellect and capacity to excel is being given a lot of premium. Mr. Chidambram himself is a distinguished lawyer and has realised the fruit of convergence. So has his colleagues Mr. Tharoor and Mr. Sibal. But the top most honours definitely go Nandan Nilenkani to go straight from being the Chairman of Infosys to being a cabinet minister in the union govt. This trend is going to continue as people want to see progress and are looking for leaders who can manage the show and understand the nuances rather than simply agitating on streets.

Life altering indeed .

The Second Stimulus Will Fail

The second Indian stimulus package will fail to revive the economy. The government has eased credit in the infrastructure sector and consumer market, provided some duty reliefs and tried to relieve the pains of the realty sector by allowing them ECBs. This will no doubt increase liquidity in the market and provide a short term relief to certain sectors but it will not lead to broad based recovery of the indian consumption. The government should realise that consumers only spend when they have a confidence that they will keep on earning and will be able to pay their debts in short as well as long term.

The direction of package is wrong especially because the pain point in Indian crisis has not been lack of money to spend, but, the willingness to spend. The electronic media has amplified the fears of slow down to such a level that people are just cutting down on spending fearing a job loss. It is leading to a spiral effect where consumption has gone down forcing manufacturers to cut back expenditures and eventually jobs. Thus, the problem will not be solved by giving people more money to spend or make the stuff cheaper as there will always be a doubt that it might suddenly run out as it was introduced. The problem will be solved by making broad based reforms to boost confidence in the Indian story, governance and economy.

The Indian government should have sensed the mood of the nation and tried to prop up the confidence by offering package that would have appealed to the heart and the head. The government could have created a special vehicle to focus on improving the infrastructure in the country and in devising processes to increase access to the new infrastructure. Spending on building infrastructure would have not only created new jobs, but also sent a signal that the government is interested in growth and they are going to take advantage of the slowdown to build infrastructure to fuel long term growth. This signal would have reinforced confidence in the Indian story and investors would stay put in the country, thus, providing a much needed psychological cushion to the consumer market.

Secondly, the government should have spent substantially on recruitment and modernisation of security personnel and revamping of judiciary . The recent mumbai attacks would have allowed the government to take such a step and restore the confidence in governance. Another step that the government could have taken would have been to launch e-governance in the country. E-governance should have been introduced at every level the citizen interacts with government institutions. This would have sent the signal that the government is trying to reduce corruption and give a power to the citizens to make the bureaucrats accountable.

Thirdly, the Indian government should have taken the opportunity to start investing in clean energy sources. With all the world attention on climate change and the commitment of US administration to spend on clean energy the government should have started a mechanism to allow the Indian industry cash in on the emerging next bubble. China has taken a lead in the manufacturing sector already. The government could have earned a lot of money by creating carbon credits and trading them for a profit. Inspite of it, there is a huge market in India itself, which if we dont capture, will be served by others.

I really feel that the government is far away from the concerns and the need of the time and the people. If something could be done…

Europe and India

Traveling has always been a pleasure to me. I relish the experience of being a part of a new place. I traveled through the length and breadth of India during my college – making trips on student-discount sleeper class train tickets from Mumbai to Kolkata and from Jammu to Chennai. The sight of sunrise and sunset over large fields from the train coaches is simply mesmerizing. In addition, you get to speak with people from varied backgrounds so much so that the trip eventually becomes a learning experience. On my trips, I have met retired army men, engineers in railways, bureaucrats from delhi, small businessmen from Gujarat, and caring families, who make the trip a nice heart warming affair.

My long trips ended with college as I started working soon thereafter. The pressures and pulls of the job hardly give any time to plan vacations with friends. The only way to ‘vacation’ are official trips. In college, I was pretty fascinated when I used to hear that a particular senior of mine had gone on such a trip. These trips were mostly outside India especially in US, thus, giving a lot of exposure to their benefactor. In addition, I viewed them as the recognition of talent of the employee by the employer who is giving the employee a chance to interact with client. As soon as I saw photographs and status messages of seniors who were recently back from such official trips outside India I used to pester them to tell me about their experiences by bombarding them with questions on orkut and chat sessions.

Not surprisingly, I agreed to go on a small official visit to Europe as soon as it was offered to me. It was my first trip outside India. The fact that it was to Europe made it all the more special as I loved the beauty of that part of the world as seen from bollywood films. The reality started sinking only after my visa application got approved and I was scheduled to fly that very week. I started thinking about the vast expanse of human existence. I realized that the same human beings occupy parts of the world from california to sydney and from russia to zimbabwe. It was a sweet recognition of the fact that all of us are the same individuals separated by historic migration. After all, we were of the same size, had the same desires and looked the same- the different was only skin deep. (Interested in human migration can refer to these two webages – a Wiki and National Geographic project).

I were to visit Sweden, Denmark, Germany and France giving me a chance to observe a large part of the developed Europe. Travelling through four countries in 10 days gave me a chance to look at them as a whole. I was in a position where I would be forming impressions on each of the countries in quick successions and amalgamating them to form a larger picture.

My first steps on foreign soil were in Amsterdam where I had stopover for a connecting flight. The first thing that I noticed was empty airport terminals and the ‘excessive’ infrastructure. I couldnt help comparing it with India – How can a small country boast of such amazing infrastructure whereas in India we are grappling with the basic amenities? I pondered over various theories that could justify and concluded it was a combination of small population and a colonial past. These countries have accessed cheap labour and raw materials by fighting wars and signing treaties. Although, I was in Europe but strangely the feeling of being in a foreign country wasn’t sinking in. Since, I had a connecting flight in 3 hours I didnt have time to step out of the airport. The airport terminal was new and swanky. It was constructed using modern architecture which relied heavily on glass and steel. It almost felt like being in a mall in New Delhi (a la City Select Saket). This got corrected when I visited Stockholm. It was beautiful and traditional – cobbled streets, statues, canals.

Over the entire trip one of the most interesting observations was that everyone in the world have similar aspirations. No matter how many people I talked to most of them aspired for similar things as we did in India. Everyone wanted to own a house, buy a great car, peace in life and world and, do ’something exceptional’.

I also observed that overall the regions within Europe do not have much difference with each other which was radically different of what you would observe in South Asia. In each country you have a different cuisine and language, but the difference ceases there. You cannot fail to realise that the environment is predictable and everything is similar if not the same. One of the in your face observation is that most people there drive black cars and wear black dresses. Even when you go in malls you find only plain colours. Here on my travels in India, I would see the culture, dialect, the type of clothes, the colour of clothes changing every 60 kilometres or so. As soon as you enter punjab, haryana, or rajasthan you see varied multitude of colours. In other words, the change in much more intense and abrupt in India as compared to Europe.

You actually feel freedom in Europe. I think it is the best place in the world. You are free to do anything unless you are not harming anyone. Such freedom was something new to me as in India we are typically free under restrictions. The threat of terrorism has already bled much of the freedom and there are now many ideologues which propound stretched theories to curb more freedom. For me it was the best experience… I didn’t feel the same exhilaration even on climbing eiffel tower.

Culturally, the two parts of the world are strinkingly different. It does’nt make any sense to draw any comparison between the two, but the fact is that they are very different from each other and that the integration of the two is very difficult. Some of things that are anathema to us are pretty normal there whereas some of our things would seem illogical to those. The need is to respect cultures individually and not to compare. I think that this generation of ours would face the challenge of living in multiple cultures and belonging to none. This would be a bit lonely generation.

Finally, the respect for law and human rights. You really have to see it and observe how it changes country. Infact, I think I should add this as the third point to answer the creation of such wealth in Europe.

The Pyramid – Contd

Concerns

The disillusionment with century old management practices is resulting in a change in the socio-spiritual behaviour. Mutual trust is in short supply. No longer, people stick to a single job. The individualistic behaviour is superseding the collective behaviour- the feeling of brotherhood. The bogey of competition is used to justify unfair and unethical practices.

It must be realised that increasingly offices are replacing society and friends as support system. Individuals nowadays, spend close to 14 hours in office on average. These long and stressful hours in office hardly allow scope for engaging in social causes or give time to discover self. (Did Mumbai stop even for a second after the blasts?). Office and company are now the social prism in which individuals now earn their credibility. The work and the office culture give meaning to people. The organisations must realise this fact and make it sure that they change and trust individuals. They must allow them to grow and realise themselves. They must allow equality of opinion and pay them equitably.

Otherwise they stand to lose the battle for talent.

The Pyramid

I came across an interesting book on organisation behaviour which was trying to prove that although we have advanced in technology and in social and political behaviour, our management practices have not changed much over the last 100 years or so.

Perspective

We still work in a pyramid type hierarchial organisations. No matter how much the world is going flat, our organisational hierarchies aren’t. The advance of technology has allowed the world to come close to each other, but the gap between the top executive and the workers hasn’t reduced. It doesn’t even matter that the world has rejected dictatorship and authoritative regimes enmasse, democracy is still seen as a threat in ‘modern’ organisations.

The orders still flow from top to bottom and everyone has to comply. All decisions regarding strategy and management are percolated down the ladder, without involving people who will execute the strategy. Moreover, there is hardly any reverse feedback. The workers still work in assembly line mode and perform specific task mechanically without trying to understanding the ‘why’. This is probably from the time of Henry Ford. An important aspect of the pyramid structure is that the employees are not considered worthy of trust and are treated as resources – dispensable after use.

The system holds on
Although, most of us do not work in a manufacturing unit, still, we can relate to it. We the ‘knowledge workers’ are working under similar if not the same managerial controls. We are required to do only a certain kind of task repeatedly. It doesn’t matter whether we have engineering and management degrees with us. We are still not treated as responsible adults – the bags are frisked before you leave office.

You are expected to do only a specific kind of task mechanically without questioning the company policy. You need to take permissions for every additional thing you intend to do. You are to file a report for the time you spend in the office. You are expected to come at a certain time and cannot modify your schedule as per your convenience or the way you think it would be best to execute the project. The results are a second priority control is the first.

I believe bureaucracy and dictatorship are hallmarks of the pyramid system where someone else decides for you. I think, in such a system, employees often work under fear and intimidation of the bosses rather than out of a sense of fulfillment of the job.

To cite an instance, at my earlier job, there was an internal academy to train the workforce to meet project requirements. Every aspect of the academy was micro-managed by the corporate executive and every program was decided on behalf of employees. I, being a fresher, found the atmosphere repulsing as I saw the managers treating all the employees as small kids rather than adults. It was like going back from college to kindergarten again. You even needed to ask permissions to drink water! and had all these security cameras all over your head to monitor your mischievous activities.

At one of the town hall meetings (large meetings where employees talk to bosses) I had the naivety of questioning the Vice President of the multi billion dollar company on why don’t we give more freedom to employees, allow them to at least learn whatever they want in an academy, and take up roles that is based on their interest in the organisation. I got that you-prove-it-you-are-a-kiddie look and an answer that the money company spends on employees is to achieve its end goal (read profit) and everyone has to work in a mission mode. In other words, company has a lease on your soul since it employs you. I disagreed and resigned soon after as i didn’t find the job fulfilling. I realised that the same behaviour transcends most organisations.

To be continued………