Sunday Posts

A culture of contribution, which most of our organisations need to thrive, is antithetical to the culture of performance that we usually have. The culture of performance is deeply flawed for two reasons. First, because it operates with the assumption that individuals make all the difference. But as computers take over our process jobs, we only employ people to do things that require social and creative activities, requiring what we call collaborative work. Teams, so to say, make difference, not just individuals. When you can't perform, perform alone that is, the idea of performance is not just misdirected but deeply harmful. Second, because the idea of performance creates wrong incentives. The 'me first' culture is deeply embedded in performance, and turns everything into a competitive solo sport. While this is linked to our social attitude towards work and success, the social attitudes are not a given, but just a product of a certain age. In a sense, the failings...

Next time I need to ship something, I won't use Fedex . This is because of a simple error made by the person who attempted delivery of a package to me yesterday and left a Sorry We Missed You card. The error is that instead of writing the Airway Bill number on the card, he wrote my phone number instead. It did not take me long to recognize it. But, then after a maze of phone calls to different call centres and depots, I realized how de -humanized the system has become, and how this simple error can not be rectified. Now, the package has to be sent back and the original sender has to contact me again. What a waste of energy, time, every resource and disruption even, of businesses and even business relationship. I can think of a whole story plot that can come out of it. Even a possible title, Fedex fails to deliver. But, this isn't funny. I am trying to laugh because I don't have a choice. There was no point being angry with anyone. The Call Centre workers could not do anyt...

Managing in India is changing, partly because India is changing, but also because of the recession. The big change, of course, is that the power has shifted away from the employees to the employers. The party, which continued for a decade and resulted in some steepest rises in the white collar salary anywhere in the world, is finally over. While this may sound like a good thing to small entrepreneurs and business managers, the current situation is definitely hurting and creating new management challenges that must be dealt with. I have seen the recession from close quarters in Britain. However, I think Indian labour markets are a bit different, not just because we don't have social security but because professional lifestyle is relatively new in India. Job loss is traumatic in any society, but it is far more traumatic when there is an element of humiliation involved and the people around you - family and friends - fail to stand by you. A big proportion of India's service sector...

Culture is perceived to be a lifestyle thing than a hard business issue. Undeniably, most businesses spend serious money to promote diversity internally and conduct cultural familiarization training regularly for staff travelling abroad and interacting with foreign clients. However, culture is usually considered as the things done outside - food, preferences, manners etc - than what is done inside the business. In my experience, it is assumed that there is one way of doing business - presumably the Anglo - Saxon way - though people come from diverse backgrounds and have to assimilate themselves in the 'mainstream'. This implicit assumption often cloud the way organizations approach culture training, and limit its effectiveness. There is another major issue with culture training as it is done today. The training often trains people to behave in a different way than their own, at least at the staff operator level. While researching on the impact of cross-cultural training on pe...