BW Communities

When Perception Leads To Posturing

BW Online Bureau Nov 08, 2014

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?><root available-locales="en_US," default-locale="en_US"><static-content language-id="en_US"><![CDATA[Manika Singh slid the DVD into its drive and waited for the visuals to play. The new corporate campaign for Temple India's office products division (OPD) was ready and the marketing people wanted to show her what the feel of the ad would be when viewed between news as against between any other programme. Shankar Kashyap, her erstwhile boss when she was in digital cameras (before she took over as CEO of OPD), was also present, waiting to see the effect unfold. Other monitors were placed all over the seminar room and different business heads and marketing heads were watching and making notes as the clip played over and over again in different combinations of news features cosseting the campaign. Presently, a news item began to play, where two central ministers were answering questions on the Lokpal Bill to the press. One of them said to a reporter, "You do not seem to understand how Parliamentary processes work." The other was saying, "You are so poorly informed!" One was pouting that the civilian team was using uncivilised language. The civilian team pooh-poohed that and said, "People of India have been upset for 62 years, so your getting upset now is very good." Then the ministers said, "The government is not going to get diverted by abuses and slanders." Another said, "If a poor man does not have a toilet, can the Lokpal bill help?" Manika paused the screen and asked the eight or nine people around to view the ad on another screen. Then, beckoning to Shankar, she pulled a chair and told him, "Sit, watch the body language, just watch... we cannot create this whole thing of ‘civil society' (as if it is a set  of incurably ill people) and ‘us'... "... don't miss the posturing, that look which says ‘you poor silly civilians, leave daddy alone to do his work....' When you separate yourself from the grassroots, apart from looking foolish, you also set in motion a perception that you don't care. And this is the point I am making: if we do not communicate with the employees clearly, we too are going to be divided. All these comments here (on television) point to that." Last week, Kannan, Manika's colleague at Temple India forwarded to her excerpts from his Facebook page discussion on the ‘sacking of Jimmy Sangma'. Kannan said he had discussed the story as a loosely packed case study with his management development students at the college where he taught, and the students, young middle-level managers, had expressed some opinions on Facebook. "This will tell you what managers and staff usually take away from an episode like this!" Recap: Manika had recently agreed to replace Jimmy Sangma, a senior technical manager at Alsor, a sister company. While she admitted that Jimmy was a good person, he was not fitting into Alsor's new and aggressive context. Replacing Jimmy had led to corridor whispers on the propriety of such a decision; whereas contention had been that ‘good and intelligent' was not enough for a job function, it should  include ‘team skills and amicability' as well, both of which Jimmy lacked. Kannan had taken the episode to his classroom and his students had posted their angst over management decisions on their student board, which Kannan sent to Manika. Replying to Kannan, she wrote, "These excerpts are indicative of exactly what happens when management does not communicate and employee managers take away a set of perceptions and huddle together and interpret things. "Take just one example, Kannan. Read the post of Manager X: ‘All these flowery words are nice to read, but in real life situations this is not how things work; when actual results are to be obtained then these case studies do not work.' "This is about all of us, Kannan. Recall, you had told me, ‘You are the one dealing with Sangma, you should know best.' And then you have gone and discussed this with a class... That strengthens my conviction that this concerns all of us. This is exactly the parantu factor I talk about. ‘You should know best, parantu...!' Talk which we cannot walk is called ‘flowery talk'." Kannan: Those are the management fraternity of the country. They are young today, but they will be running organisations tomorrow. You can see that they have very strong view points about sacking a manager... especially when he is also skilled! But Shankar said to Manika, "I want to see how you are going to deal with this. This is real life. To head a business includes dealing with backhanded ones."  Manika (referring to Kannan and the Facebook chatter): This is how we do back-of-the-envelope management. To comment in passing, to opine from the periphery, to hold on to a viewpoint....! Management is not about viewpoints. It is about the point from which you view. And that point has to be non-personal. I don't know if the correct word is impersonal, but I definitely believe it has to be non-personal.... It has to view the greater good of a collective. I am not on television, Shankar. Nor is the issue of Sangma a News Time debate. The issue is serious and when I agree with replacing him, I am not replacing the person Jimmy Sangma, but a skill-set contained in the persona of Sangma that is not working for the organisation. I have my mind trained on the path that Temple India needs to be on. If Kannan's opinions have to be addressed, they need to come in a formal forum. Until then, I am not being baited. So if Kannan wants to be counted, we must have a formal discussion, where all views are factored in. Another post: ‘Oh yes! Juniors cannot give feedback to the seniors !!! Seniors ‘know', juniors simply adhere!'  break-page-break Manika (to Shankar and Deven Vats, head of HR): This is perception, and this is the perception I want addressed. This can be removed when we stop gossiping about our people decisions and talk straight. The issue of Sangma needs to be communicated to all at Alsor in a way that we do not make it look like sacking, because Sangma was not sacked. But he was asked to step off. There is a difference to people management in today's times. Deven and I wish this difference to be made very apparent in an address to Alsor, where we talk about the dynamics of competition and business evolution and how when the context changes, the same people need not be right for the changed context. Because finally having people is a cost. And that cost has to return us a value. People here were hired in the 1990s, for an anticipated growth pattern for the next 15 years maybe. But while growth in quantity has turned out as targeted, the content has gone haywire! I mean, we were not able to understand where technology would go, where competition would emerge from and how much we would globalise. We were not prepared for the change. The changed context of the marketplace dynamics needs addressing. Educating people includes all this as well!  No wonder then they talk about fair and unfair! Deven: To me, this is a huge example of communication: how important it is that everyone agrees to the decision made and then sticks with that single version. How does the management team work together? That ‘that was Manika's decision, not an HR decision' or vice versa? Not at all! During the vision workshop, we were taught that all thoughts and ideas belong to the group. ‘Idam na mama' in Vedanta speak; the management team objectively discusses to enable a decision that will be reached collectively. A decision has multiple contributors who collectively ‘develop' the decision. The team gets all the facts together, discusses them, understands why the decision is taken and then they all stand by it. Sometimes, people don't spend enough time to understand.  They use ‘flowery words', which are often like macros, compressing a large learning, with quick opinion. So what happens is lack of common understanding, lack of internalising the action. And add to that the feeling of ‘my function', ‘her function' and you have the roots of a broken organisation. So once the decision is taken, a common script must be drawn up and given to the team that is allowed to speak on the issue. The rest must simply keep quiet and point people in the right direction. And then, as we say in change management, communicate pro-actively and before it hits, rather than after. The important thing is to not encourage gossip: the challenge with Jimmy Sangma's case is that it allows everyone to voice an opinion and most people actually do not have strong opinions, or at least, not firm convictions. They get swung by what they find in the outside world that appeals most at that time. No organisation should stoop to responding to nonsensical accusations, but they do have to find innovative ways to counter gossip and misconceptions. Shankar: Here is one more comment: ‘General Managers are ‘eccentric' , never seen a normal general manager!' Manika: No matter how hard we try, there will always be lunchroom discussions on ‘management is like this', and ‘HR is like that'. We must always ensure we have an honest exchange from a podium with our people, and only from that podium. We should not talk about different things to different people. I have always been deeply impacted by a situation at Infosys. It was a time when Infosys had a very delicate situation with an employee embroiled in a mess in the US. Narayana Murthy did not have three versions. He spoke once to the press and once to his people. To both, he said the same thing, no different. To both, he made it clear what the organisation stance was. Thereafter, he stopped and did not engage with them. And he has always been so. Speak once, speak correctly. If we do that, these perceptions of GMs will improve. Deven: I agree, managers need grace. Not everyone has it. Shankar: Yet here is one reporter from a newspaper who says, "Treat others the way you would like to be treated. Unfortunately, in high stress situations sometimes it doesn't work. I don't think firing is... cold. Different situations demand different solutions." Then she says, "Don't wait to be taught because no one will teach. If you have the passion, work those extra five hours and figure it out yourself." Manika: Again, points to perceptions. Why should there be a ghost idea about management? Why do employees come to think of managers, especially senior managers, as ‘people who sack', ‘people who teach', ‘people who do not teach', ‘people who treat'... If you hear closely, this is their experience of management, how they have perceived their seniors based on what they got. Organisations are a microcosm of our social context, and if we see aggression in the workplace, it perhaps comes from our social context. Or is it the other way — that because there is aggression in the work place, I take it home and unleash it on the family?  Deven: There is a deep-level confusion about issues here. ‘Teaching' is not what organisations do. At least, not the kind of teaching this lady is referring to. Organisations hire people who have already learnt. This is a huge misconception that organisations must teach. This lady says ‘go figure it out'... I say, you cannot be employed if you are still figuring it out! So there is a fine difference here. Trainees, interns — we teach. Young managers or all managers are mentored. Knowledge and skills they pick up on the run after B-school. Shankar: Manika, the media lady's words — "Don't take things personally"— are equally for you. Don't carry more confusion with the perceptions surrounding Sangma's departure... Manika: Shankar! I believe, beyond the teaching and preaching, beyond the theory and practice, lies a human being who needs to have the courage to admit that theory is not often in sync with humane-ness. I have a strong sense of fairness and do not like to feel that I might not have done the right thing by the company and the individual. Deven: Why should that thought belabour you? We took the decision as a team, not as Manika Singh. Two, as you yourself pointed out at the start, Sangma was not sacked. He did not fit into the changed context at Temple, hence, we need someone different to perform his job. Shankar: Talking of courage, I must share this. My wife works with an organisation which has predominantly women workers and she laughs at me and says that only in male organisations are emotions seen more clinically, put under a scanner and laughed at. So ignore my ‘why are you so confused...' comment. Confusion incidentally is not a feminine prerogative. Recall I was extremely confused in a similar situation which I mentioned the last time. I guess men won't label their feelings, and men will call all feelings also as ‘ideas' or ‘thoughts'! Manika (smiling): So, to set confusions right, I also think that Jimmy did add a lot of value to us in his tech role and it isn't easy to replace his experience. But the difficulty with Jimmy was his personality, his lack of amicability. And since his job requires a lot more of team play, especially since all those tasks are rush jobs and need to be done in time, he comes a cropper. Deven: Here is one more:  this student manager says that some people in top management actually prefer nasty people in middle management. Does he mean Sangma? He adds, ‘Aggressiveness is frequently associated with an ‘achiever' attitude. A majority of the actual task force is dispensable. And those few who aren't, can always be taken into the core team by some external incentives.' I really wonder if this is representative of the average manager thinking or is this pure interpretation. Jimmy Sangma's exit has resulted in a huddle and a posture. We should be moving ahead, not backwards... we will have situations like this and we need to have an open chat with Alsor's teams. Let me share with you a story that happened some years ago but has left us embarrassed. Some years ago, there was a huge backlash when Kartik  was asked to leave for some ethics issue. It was done quietly so as to not affect Kartik, hence no one knew why he was asked to go. I had just joined Temple then. There was a process that we had leased from one DX, which was being used by JJ's team, where Kartik was a manager. Kartik had lost his temper with JJ, the user, over an ethical issue concerning breach of IP because JJ was using the process beyond defined areas. Kartik lost his temper, and used some choice modern expletives; an angry JJ  pulled the roof down and Kartik had to go. break-page-break The management had pulled a blanket over the whole story. But JJ, unsoothed by Kartik's resignation, spread stories that Kartik had attacked him physically. Foolish, but there is no saying what anger leads one to do! Placement firms got to hear this story, they confronted Kartik, he got upset, he asked Temple to clarify and set things right. Then, in anger he reported to the process owner DX that there had been a bid to hijack his patents... and things just got from bad to extremely bad. Shankar: Wow... I didn't know the details. I was told Kartik had fouled up, someone said he was drunk... So who was wrong or were they all wrong or was no one wrong? Manika: Fabulous! See what I mean? Shankar, senior manager, who could have known the truth, also carried perceptions as truths! You cannot allow for stories to develop. It's unfair, patently unfair. HR may have good reasons for wanting to let things rest, but out there are human beings with minds that get doubtful, and their speculation damages! <img src="/businessworld/system/files/case_study1_communication_200x174.jpg" style="margin: 5px; float: right;" width="250" height="174"> Deven: Okay, let me explain. Things had got so clouded by then, we didn't want to add to the confusion. It really was something we expected Kartik to handle maturely!  Manika: But it is the company's duty to anticipate that everyone would want to know what happened. Silence and stoicism is sophisticated but damaging!             *    *    * Now, here she was with Shankar and Deven in the seminar room, and the Lokpal debate. "Just look at all the posturing and huddling going on. Watch the ministers' behaviours, postures... this is exactly what management does sometimes. We do not seem to realise that employees get harmed even if they don't voice it, if you just sit and wait for things to cascade as it had done now with the Lokpal Bill. For 65 years you piled waste on the citizen and now you have an uprising!"  Deven: We as HR can only convey the decision taken by the company and stand by it. We support the company's stance, as we should. It is expected of us.... Manika: So if we compare this with the Lokpal Bill festival going on, who assumes responsibility for the people? See? This is at the heart of those Facebook posts. We are management and we cannot behave like ‘people'. We need to have a standard practice for communicating all news pertaining to employees, to employees. It is not nice to let things drift and not bring a resolution to things.  Therefore I do think there should be a communication with Alsor teams as to why Sangma is leaving us, that organisations can ask a person to leave Temple, if it is seen that he has lost the context. More than clarifying the myth behind Sangma's exit, it will let employees know that growth demands everyone to grow too!" Classroom discussion What is at the heart of a leadership's inhibition to hold a dialogue with the people? casestudymeera(at)gmail(dot)com (This story was published in Businessworld Issue Dated 18-07-2011)