The most invisible but impactful element of the organisation is culture–and arguably one that helps sustainability as well as consistent and superior performance. It’s not just difficult to define but also to explain in a meaningful way, and at the end of the day, is an aggregation of many things. Culture is underlying and what is visible or observable are symptoms, and maybe some behaviours, or how things happen in the organisation. It is then the job of leadership to make meaning out of these visible symptoms/signs and take action to reinforce or correct certain things. However, changing culture is often difficult and unsuccessfully attempted. The difficulty often lies in changing things (processes, leadership, ways of working, people bahaviours and rewarding mechanisms). This is particularly so if the organisation has been successful in the past. Here are a few primary causes (and there can be many more), which seem to be relevant in this context. These are more from a leadership and people perspective and do not illustrate the challenges from a financial, process or system perspective.

It’s easier to talk about problems than do something about them. Most people can fairly accurately talk about symptoms, and some even get to the root cause of issues. Collectively or individually, it’s most likely that the people in the organisation often are well aware of the problem, or at least part of the problem. It is however quite amazing that nothing happens as a consequence. This could be due to many reasons–the voice is not heard, symptoms ignored and /or the analysis of the root cause is faulty. However, it appears that most of the time organisations and leaders do not know “how” to deal with the problem. So they know the “what” but not the path to get there. It’s also feasible that the “how” is linked to difficult choices and a different way of doing things, so it does not automatically happen. And many leaders may believe that by talking about the problem enough, it will somehow go away. Unless there is differentiated action to address real issues, this is unlikely to happen.

Most People/Leaders see themselves as being outside the problem. It’s often quite enlightening to see people talk about challenges in their organisation. It is as if they are analysts or consultants. They refuse to believe that their own actions, behaviours and contribution is also part of the success and culture of the organisation. It is as if they are not part of the organisational dance but standing aside watching other people dance. It’s good to step back once in a while and take a detached view. It is also imperative to accept that each employee (and particularly senior leaders) leave a mark by how they behave and do things on the fabric of the organisation. This defines culture more often than not, and unless there is personal responsibility to see and do thing differently, the collective change at an organisational level will not happen.

The wrong behaviour is being rewarded and not reprimanded/corrected. This is perhaps the most contentious area. Leaders often give confusing signals to people  down the line. There are either not enough motivators for change, and not enough communication around the consequences of changing or not changing are. The rewards (or reprimands) often have nothing to do with behaviours the organisation is trying to drive. There are overt and covert reward mechanisms in organisations–e.g,who gets more face time with the leader in a particular group. While leaders may deal with overt and apparent reward mechanisms (pay, promotions, appraisal ratings etc), they are often negligent of the more subtle recognition mechanisms and what message it is passing to the organisation at large. It is quite difficult to get even the stated reward mechanisms right while implementing–bringing objectivity and fairness. On top of that if there are too many covert signals as to what is ‘really’ valued –or not–it confuses the organisation and creates mistrust and lack of behavioural direction.

The subtle signals are ignored. Organisations and culture don’t change by themselves, at least in a planned way. There are of course examples of crises which force change. While implementing change however, signs of support or resistance can be often ignored, By not acknowledging support, this is likely to go away and enthusiasm fade. By not dealing with conflict and resistance in a timely and direct manner, it can grow, and even become a roadblock. The ability to pick the signs, and more importantly act on them is critical. Change managers and leaders are so taken up by their own vision and what they want to drive that other perspectives can be missed sometimes. Also, differentiating between the more apparent (vocal) signs vis the ones which are less apparent may be important to direct action. The trick therefore is to not just pick the right signals and all of them, but also interpret meaningfully, assess the impact and act.

Change Orientation, Managing Culture, Managing Culture Design & Change Bimal Rath

It was the month of June 1999, when I first met Vijayan[1]. I was interviewing him for a position of project lead in my company. Vijayan had all those qualities required for being considered for this position. A graduate degree in electronics and communication engineering from one of the premier engineering colleges in the country, followed by a masters from one of the sought after US universities and then about five years of relevant working experience in Silicon Valley with well known semiconductor companies. The technical interview panel already recommended his selection indicating his having very high degree of competence required for the job. In the HR round, I was very impressed with his clarity of thought, when he answered my questions, especially those related to his career.  Then he made an unusual request. He wanted to be employed part time. I was not prepared for this because I always thought a project leader’s job in an IT company has to be full time. But he was very firm in his decision. He said half the day he would like to work for an NGO committed to uplift the life-standards of village artisans. Initially I did not agree but later on after talking to my other colleagues I reluctantly agreed to give a try. Vijayan joined us and over a period of time, he emerged as one of the most successful project leads in the company. However, he continued to work for half the day. In due course, I gradually became aware about him as a person, his views about many things in life and what he wants to achieve in his career. I realised that the primary objective in his career was not to become a successful IT manager, but to help others for a cause and make the world a better place to live.

It’s a mere coincidence that I met Sarita1 during the same time. She had a MBA in HR from one of the premier institutes of the country. She was then looking for an organisation which could give her opportunity to work for part - time in the HR team. I interviewed her and found her very competent in her area of expertise. I offered her a part time job as a consultant in the HR team. She did her job very well and then I offered her to be a permanent member of the team with regular managerial responsibilities. She was very clear in her approach, she said she would accept the manger’s role but still would like to continue part time. I realised that she valued her family and personal life equally to that of her organisational career and professional achievements and was not ready to give up one at the cost of the others.  I was much wiser by then and I offered her a part time managerial job for a team of full time HR professionals. She not only excelled in her job but also was well accepted by her team members.

During the same time only I met Raviram1 in one of the conferences where both of us were co-speakers. We became good friends over a period of time and started meeting each other regularly to exchange our thoughts on subjects of mutual interests over weekends. Raviram was working for a multinational IT company as the software engineering head and was doing exceedingly well. He was being considered for heading the company for a major product initiative in the South East Asia region. Suddenly, in one of these meetings, he confessed about his intention of leaving his job.  He sought my advice. However, the passionate way he explained his future plans to start his new organisation, I somehow knew he had already made up his mind. As predicted, going against advices from almost all his close friends and relatives he decided to quit and started his own company.

These three real life incidents convinced me that many of the traditional theoretical concepts for explaining career phenomena seem less valid today in India than they did earlier. There were three significant changes that I was witnessing through these experiences. The first was the de-coupling of the concept of career to any one organisation (so entrenched in my mind set) and even from its exclusive association with paid employment. Second the departure from the usually accepted notion of career as regular progressions through ladder like job sequences. Third was the newer meaning of career that went beyond organisations and encompassed family, life-interests and personal accomplishment.

Interestingly enough, in all the three real - life examples that I narrated above provided me an interesting insight about the career and career success in today’s world. Whereas in earlier days in India, professionals were contended with the organisational view of career and the career success today’s professionals were looking for self-defined view of career and the career success. Therefore, I felt it was important for me to understand the crucial building blocks that defined career and career success for these professionals. Reflecting on these experiences, I realised that if we, the HR professionals continue to take a purely transactional view of individual-organisational relationship, see as any individual as largely replaceable in terms of skill set, and view all non-work interest as strictly the individual’s business unless they infringe on his/her daily work schedule, we will be focusing as usual with the organisation - driven objective and external perspective of career and ignoring the individual - driven, subjective and internal perspective of career.  Instead I thought could we address internal career needs of these professionals in organisational context.

In the backdrop of such realities, it calls for re- examining the changing meaning of career itself; the silent evolution that had already taken place in west and has already began in India, especially among the new generation whom I refer as “New Careerists”.

Career researcher Shepherd described this as a new career contact, which is not a pact with the organisation but more of an agreement with one’s self and one’s work. According to him, “these are the things that you can now or potentially could do with excellence, which are fulfilling in the doing of them, so fulfilling that if you also get paid to do them, it feels not like compensation, but like a gift”.

In this changing scenario, organisations in India need to realise that the time has come here too, where the work force are turning themselves into more pluralistic, where individual need fulfillment is as important as the external ones imposed by demands, possibilities, and limitations of the organisations. Success for these “New Careerists” will therefore depend to what extent organisations adopt creative and unorthodox HR practices that can effectively address internal career needs of these young and mobile professionals and create an emotional bonding between individuals and the organisation. This pluralistic framework of career recognises that there are markedly different ways of defining career success for an individual in the context of organisation, consequently markedly different approaches to career management to manage these “New Careerists”.

Are we ready to experiment?

[1] Real names have not been used to keep the anonymity

Business Knowledge, Change Orientation, Talent Management, Training & Development Dr. Pallab Bandyopadhyay

 During times of economic downturn, businesses tend to respond to short-term crises with counterproductive defensive tactics. Such knee jerk reactions ultimately hurt the only sustainable competitive advantage we have i.e. our employees.

Regardless of whether Companies are experiencing an economic slowdown or an economic upswing, the bottom line is that people power is the certain route towards gaining a competitive advantage.

In this context investment in talent development is one of the most effective ways for businesses to maintain their top talent’s loyalty and ability to continue delivering high-performance. HR leaders thus need to be proficient at developing talent and creating the congenial work environment to build a high-performing workforce. Today, one of the top priorities for HR is maintaining a talent pipeline, driving high performance throughout the organization and experimenting with new HR practices based on the needs of their people. This HR contribution becomes all the more prudent in a economic downturn environment.

One of the key roles played by HR is to develop the leadership pool for the organization. Shopping for Leaders in the open market will become increasingly risky and difficult on the contrary building leaders will be the only way to succeed. Over the years, HR has thus become strategic to business; there are many examples in Indian as well as global Companies where HR Heads have been made a part of the Board of Directors. Hence during the downturn a calm & balanced approach on people decisions becomes the pre-requisite to define the roadmap to normal times.

In the present business environment HR function has to demonstrate a strong relationship between workforce practices and business performance. This will be done through advanced data-mining and the predictive modeling of human resource processes i.e. talent development, Performance Management etc; to identify new business insights. In other words, HR would continue its focus on human resource measurements.

HR is accountable for driving performance at the organizational, team and individual levels. I think that today’s focus on high performance is a growing recognition through reward and recognition, performance management, and people development etc. Instead of focusing on individual motivators, HR functions must begin to look at driving performance as an end-to-end process that begins with goal-setting and alignment, ensures accountability for achieving results, includes thorough and consistent feedback, and ends with differentiated and targeted rewards and developmental opportunities..

While dealing with the downturn most of us negate or pay less attention to the people aspect in our business, as we are more interested in managing our bottom line. In the trying business circumstances similar to the one we are experiencing in the past 9 months, many organizations have found a short term solution in laying off their employees, while few have been able to actually demonstrate their belief in ‘People Power’ by retaining them and ensuring a long term competitive edge for their company. It is high time that we acknowledge the fact that employees are the key differentiating factor for any business organization, as they ‘Draw, Drive & Deliver’ the business results. The underlying principles of any business model, therefore, should always aim at, keeping the employees motivated & engaged. The leadership should take time out for employees & have one to one dialogue, communicate consistently & honestly, connect each employee to the organization by emphasizing their contribution. In fact the motto for top leadership should be “Be there” for your people & most importantly, “listen to your employees.”

A business has both internal and external customers. In an economic upswing or downtrend, everyone gets affected, though the extent may vary. The key to handle this is to get back to the ‘Basics’ - Strong leadership, investment in key resources, thorough planning, improving productivity, renewed focus, out of box thinking & innovations and customer obsession. However, this can actually happen only if one has a competent, engaged and highly motivated employees.

Unquestionably, the winners on the other side of this global downturn will be the organizations with the strategic leadership talent that can drive innovation and growth. Consequently, the nurturing and development of strategic leadership talent is vital and should be on the agenda of boards. The ability of a company to deal with difficult situations is to a large extent dependant on the mental strength & positive mindset of the top leadership, as well as the organizational culture. In my view looking at counter measures in the downturn situation is more of a reactionary approach. The organizations must look at up scaling the People Power through innovation & growth and stay focused on people processes when business environment is on the upswing.

To conclude, let me say Corporates have to choose between a short term approach of going for knee jerk reactions and viewing the employees as an overhead cost or talking a prudent view of people as the talent pool or people power which in the long term can help Companies to ride out hard economic times and improve their overall business performance and enable consistent organization growth.

From

SY Siddiqui

Managing Executive Officer – Admn (HR, Finance & IT), Maruti Suzuki India Limited And President – National HRD Network, Delhi Chapter

Building HR Strategy, Business Knowledge, Change Orientation, Strategic Thinking & Alignment SY Siddiqui