The Monkey In The L’oreal Salon

Thought Leadership for Reflection: I often say “you can take a monkey to a L’Oréal Salon and who knows s/he (the monkey that is) may turn out looking Fair & Lovely (or Handsome) like Aishwarya Rai, Angelina Jolie John Abraham or Brad Pitt. However, the monkey who is looking good now (for a while), may not have imbibed any shared values required for building long- term character. This is my response to HR/ Learning & Development Heads/ line managers in organisations when they ask me to conduct an outdoor learning programme to build values like fairness, integrity, team spirit, humility, passion and commitment in their managers so they build great teams.

Do white water rafting or rappelling or any other games people play at outdoor training expeditions, really build values and character in a person or an executive? That is like taking a monkey to a salon and expecting the monkey (who looks beautiful now) to stop monkeying around for the long term. In the longer journey of development, the monkey shall neither look beautiful, nor have the character, skills, values and behaviours that we were hoping for. This may also hold true and is analogous to the organisation development idea of taking executives for team building exercises like white water rafting, fire-walking, etc. and expecting them to become better team players.

While outdoor games may be good, a great offsite break for good fun and adventure and work for those two or three days for team spirit in the simulated atmosphere, they do not last till people get back to the workplace. That’s when the games people play begin again. These activities are more like a cosmetic makeover than a real-time vital visioning activity needed for building long-term sustainable vision and values for multi-level teamwork through leadership rooted in character.

Ideas for Action: Very few CEOs/ CXOs and managers have understood the importance of a collective visioning workshop for creating a collaborative vision and mission, shared team purpose and shared values. It is this vision, mission, team purpose and values which help to build great teams. Most managers in leading roles, create a vision in the glass house and enforce it upon an unassuming workforce, who are coerced to wittingly or unwittingly accept it. Visioning exercises in organisations are like Ivy League agri-entrepreneurs and venture capitalists sitting in glass houses in Gurgaon or Bombay, who think they can teach agriculture to farmers who work at the grassroots in the farmlands of Punjab and Maharashtra.

While creating a visioning activity in the organisation, we must bring together the intelligence in the glass house and the wisdom from the grassroots. While your intelligence as a CEO or manager in a leadership role would help you articulate the vision, strategy and the execution plan better, it is the workforce who deliver –the grassroots who have the insights from the market or from the consumers or people at large. If you are not listening to them, you may have lost the main plot of the success story and thus have set yourself up for failure. Listen to them to create a co-owned vision, mission and strategic goals. Then also co-create an execution plan with cooperative insight-sharing.