Back to the Basics

Dear Fellow HRDians

I had originally planned to write more on the thread of my initial post. In the meanwhile I felt that it would be worthwhile  to share an article I had  written for the intranet  in  my company. It is relevant and connected to  what we have discussed so far- So here goes....

                                               Back to Basics

Today, we are living in a world of stiff competition. There is a mad rush to reach the finishing line any which way.In line with the western thought, the feeling in the industrial circles in our country also, is that "individual' is the savior and 'individualism' is the panacea for everything.The term 'team work' is merely good to parrot and pay lip sympathy to.As a result, although everyone claims to work as a team for beating the competition,they have no qualms about tripping a teammate or company mate  in order  to be that star performer who scored the goal.
In our haste we tend to look for short cuts and disrespect the basics. Quality for example can be a casualty in the number game. The basics which include respect for a fellow human being, may seem old fashioned.Yet there are some things like politeness, integrity and respect which can never go out of fashion. Extending these attributes to actual behavior on the ground could mean the following:-

1) Listening to a colleague patiently without interrupting him or her

Meetings are meant to know and let know- to understand and provide opportunity to others to understand the  subject discussed, so that collective inputs and various points of view are available before taking decisions. However when discussion is used for up man ship and not to appreciate different points of view, it gets disruptive.People become cautious in expressing opinions- "Why take the risk of being ridiculed?The one with a bigger lung power or dismissive nature gets his/her  way most of the time" Different ideas with various choices do not emerge in such situations.The real picture is rarely revealed, leading to wrong solutions to issues.

2) Criticizing in private and praising in public

When you criticize someone, the immediate tendency of that person would be to defend himself /herself rather than constructively apply his mind in resolving the problem.It happened to me.... Many years ago as a younger man, I was attending a training program.The facilitator was showing a video on the employees of Suzuki, Japan at work. The video showed them taking just ten minutes break during which time they quickly have a smoke,visit the rest room,chat with colleagues, complete other miscellaneous matters and stand in attention in front of their machine two minutes before the whistle for resumption of work.The company does not have a security department and does not believe in it as it completely  trusts its employees.

The video also showed employees and their families going on weekend holidays organized by their company.All employees from the chairman to the last person stand and do exercises together at the beginning of the shift.

As I watched the video I was totally impressed, bowled over and was in a state of wonder that there could be such wonderful alignment between employees and their company.As the lights came on  the words that spontaneously escaped my lips were " It sounds almost like a fairy tale." The facilitator was taken aback. She had taken me to be one of the positive enthusiastic participants.She viewed my remark as negative and questioning the very truthfulness of the video.

 Although my words had come from a place of appreciation and wonder the facilitator was upset and she labelled me a skeptic and negative person before the whole class.I was in a daze and felt publicly humiliated.

At that time one of the participants shared his  experience with a Japanese firm.He was working in the purchase department. While  making payment to the Japanese supplier for goods received, the department inadvertently overpaid by about two Lakhs of rupees.However while they were worrying about how to deal with the matter, they received a letter from the company within a week's time pointing out the overpayment and enclosing a cheque for the said sum.

Although a very good live example was being given  in support of the remarkable work ethics outlined in the video, I was hardly paying attention. When the facilitator asked "Now what do you have to say? ", I could hardly respond and the colleague had to repeat the story all over again.The point I am making is that if we focus more on the criticism rather than correcting and eliciting appropriate behavior from the other person, we are bound to encounter defensive employees.Constructive feedback in private can get you better results.

3)   Team Working
In the eastern way of life the focus has always been common good and collective welfare, whether it is in the context of a family, organization or community at large.Individual desires and aspirations are held to be subservient  to the overall good of the organization.The western philosophy, on the other hand has always upheld the supremacy of the individual. Susan.M.Heathfield,HR Guide  says "In America our institutions such as schools, our family structures and our pass times emphasize winning,being the best and coming out on top.Workers are rarely raised in environments that emphasize true team work and collaboration."

Thus ,unlike under the ancient Gurukul system in India, where the student waited in anticipation and learned as and when the teacher felt he was ready for it,today in line with western education our schools & colleges treat the students as customers who are to be satisfied.The onus is on the teacher to keep his customer happy- teach him when he is in the mood for it, make things entertaining & interesting while he takes a puff on his cigarette.

The products that come out of such a process are bound to be naturally inclined to selfishness & gratification of individual needs rather than team needs. You cannot plant apple seeds and expect to get oranges.The problem with too much individualism is that one tends to be intolerant of others' views and getting one's way takes priority over the the interests of the organization.In cricketing parlance, scoring your individual century is more important than the team winning.

Getting back to the basics would mean inculcating, reinforcing and rewarding team behaviour. People tend to take seriously only those activities that are recognized and rewarded.As for example, if we talk a lot about team working but when it comes to compensation & career growth, individual contribution is appreciated, less and less people would be interested in team working.The performance management system should emphasize and place value on team work and obtain a 360 degree feedback on team qualities exhibited. Important stories  and folklore involving team working needs to be told and passed on to future generations in the company.Frequent discussions on the  advantages of team working  are to be organized....  "Remember the time body shop department worked as a single unit and achieved scrap reduction by 20% ? "

Back to the basics also means respecting the individual.Roy.J.Blitzer and Jacquie Reynolds in their book "Find the Bathrooms First" says "No one can continue to function well for very long in an environment that erodes his or her self esteem." New management initiatives and process improvement techniques become relevant and ready for implementation only if the soil is fertile and healthy with the basics fully in place.

The said soil will have hues like politeness,respect,integrity, empathy and compassion which blend to give the heady mix like the beautiful multicolored soil of kanyakumari,India. Lao Tzu, the Chinese philosopher  has said " I have three precious things that I hold fast and prize. The first is gentleness, the second frugality and the third is humility. Be gentle and you can be bold, be frugal and you can be liberal, avoid putting yourself before others and you can become a leader of men"

The 'Back to Basics' mantra can never go wrong because it is in line with the natural and eternal law of life.If basics are in place success cannot be far behind both in our professional and personal endeavors.

Happiness and peace. Rest in my next.

Power of Appreciation

Dear fellow HRDians

In my last post we discussed how HR needs to look at alternative approaches."Appreciative inquiry" was mentioned as one of the ways we can bring about change for the better. Appreciative inquiry(AI) , as developed by David Cooperrider and Suresh Srivastava is a step by step methodology of using appreciation as the base for dreaming,developing action plan and implementing them  for a better reality.
AI can be described as an effective OD tool for bringing about positive  changes in social settings,schools/colleges or corporates. The five phases of AI are Definition, Discovery,Dream,Design and Destiny/ Delivery. I attended a three day workshop on AI to get an understanding of the concept. I have not yet  embarked on a full fledged AI exercise. However 'Appreciation ' and its power is something that intrigues me.

While putting into practice AI process in its totality could get us big results;to my mind,a mere attitude of appreciation can change your work situation and life in general. In the book"The Secret" by Rhonda Byrne, the author brings out the importance of 'Gratitude' in order to attract wonderful things into our lives. So powerful is this concept of gratitude that Byrne in her third  book"The Magic" deals almost entirely on this subject. The first step towards a grateful mind is appreciation of all that we already have in our lives.It is only when we are grateful for all those things we already have that the good God will give us much more.
If we want our employees to be more motivated and contribute more, we need to appreciate what they are already doing well instead of always trying to find fault or look out for the shortcomings.If our relationship with our spouse is not good at the moment, nothing much will change or improve if we continue to look at the things we don't like about that person.Instead , we need to celebrate all the good things about the spouse. When you start counting all the good things about her/ him, surprisingly you find your relationship improves.
Taking a cue  from this concept of appreciation, I experimented with an exercise while doing a training program for  employees who were promoted from the level of technician( blue collared) to supervisors. I split the the total number of 20 participants into two groups of 10 each. For the purpose of the exercise, one group was told to assume that they were technicians and the other group that they were supervisors.

One person from each group alternatively  was required to come before the entire group and speak a few words of appreciation about the other group.So, the supervisors spoke highly of the contribution of technicians and empathized with the difficulties faced by technicians & vice versa. This was not difficult for this group since they were now playing the role of a supervisor and had till recently played the role of technicians. what followed was half an hour of pure appreciation of both roles and feelings of goodwill in the air.The entire proceedings was video graphed. I ended the session by reminding the new supervisors that we need to appreciate the role of others, particularly those with whom we are regularly interacting. This will ensure that we have a smooth working relationship.

Normally the relationship between a technician and supervisor is strained. Each one is suspicious of the other and there is a lack of trust. Yet when the 'appreciation video' mentioned above  was  shown to technicians attending another program, they watched the same in pin drop silence and acknowledged the  value of appreciating the role of  others. This was possible because for the first time they heard lot of appreciation & praise from supervisors whom they always believed as not having any regard or respect for them.

The Power of Appreciation was experimented in another program designed for middle level executives.The executives were drawn from various disciplines such as Production, Maintenance, Quality control, Materials, Production Planning, Employee relations etc. The program titled "Synergy" aimed at improving the  harmony of executives working in  diverse areas who could encounter conflicts in the course of normal work. The program sought to imbibe in them a sense of the 'Big Picture' and not focus on their immediate departmental goals. While team working was the focus area, it was decided in consultation with the external faculty  to administer a doze of 'appreciation' in the initial part of the program itself  in order to build goodwill and trust amongst the participants.
The participants were encouraged to speak of the times when his counterpart from the other department(preferably one who is present as a participant) went beyond the normal call of duty to support and help  which left a pleasant feeling for a long time to come. After initial hesitation, more and more of the participants warmed up to the  idea of appreciating their colleagues.

Later towards the end of the program they were invited to now share their 'Wish Lists' in the sense they could now tell their counterparts what are the areas in which they expected more  support or improvements. Normally in a large group, people are reluctant to to speak about things that can be viewed as fault finding. But when  I pointed out to them that it was not actually  a case of fault finding  but equivalent  to  members of a family discussing  together for the benefit  of the whole organization, the participants had no hesitation to express their expectations from other departments.Normally conflicting departments would have engaged in a bitter debate on such issues.
Actually all this was possible in view of the fact that appreciation was already conveyed in the morning  and in its light and fragrance, it was possible  for all the participants to accept feedback for improvements. What I have discussed are baby steps. I know that the potential and the power of appreciation is much more and it is only with more and more practice that we would  be able to reap rich benefits.

I hope this post will encourage readers to  not only appreciate the 'Power of Appreciation' but also look at Appreciative inquiry as a serious tool to resolve some of our issues in the industry.
Happiness and peace. Rest in my next

HR at crossroads- A new path, a new way is the need of the hour

As a practicing HR  professional for over 30 years with exposure to both public and private sector industries in India, the single most factor that I have noticed and it has not changed much over the years, is that the  other disciplines do not see HR as  meaningfully contributing to the 'real needs' of the organization or the needs of   internal customers. The feeling is more about HR engaging in activities to justify its existence rather than on the real needs.
It is not so much about wanting to have a place at the table of the  board of directors but the fact that all exercises seem without meaning when your customers do not see it as of much value, How do we show that our learning & development initiatives can really make a difference ? How to demonstrate that  each aspect of HR whether it is recruitment,career planning, policies  or employee relation initiatives are crucial to the success of the organization? This is the challenge
When  I read the comments of HR professionals the world over on the internet, I find that the situation is not very different in other parts of the world..
Time has come for us to do a rethink on the approaches in HR which is generally modeled on the management education of the west. The approach has been deficit based- To keep looking for the areas that are falling short. Point out the wrong or find out who is responsible and punish them and reward others who seem to do better than the standard The carrot  and stick method  has served its time and it is no longer useful for retaining   interest and motivation of employees in their work in the long run.
I think that the responsibility for the positivity, motivation , interest and drive  in work and life in general has to be with the employee himself / herself. As HR professionals we can show new paths on which they can travel to achieve this. Instead of of claiming or believing that we have pressed this switch and the the light has come on, what we can actually claim is that we have shown new alternative ways and many of them chose to take them and benefited themselves and the organization.
What are these new ways  that can be attempted?Actually these are not strictly new and they have been around for some time.It is only that  we HRDians have tended to be generally conservative and not been open to its potential. One of the concepts that immediately come to mind is 'appreciative inquiry' first explained by David Cooper rider and his research guide Suresh Srivastava, which can be a powerful means to remove the weeds lying around in the industrial scenario by focusing totally on the good things and appreciating them. I will discuss in a future article my own experience of using to advantage 'appreciation' as an idea. We can also look at mind programming for long time benefits wherein positive ideas are embedded into the minds of employees in a an alpha state. NLP Co founded by Richard Bandler and John Grinder has been beckoning us to come and benefit from it since decades. We could also look at how we can use the guidelines in the 'Law of Attraction' to our advantage.
Time has come to enhance the prestige of our HR function . As the old ways have not worked in the long run, it is only natural that we look at new ways to contribute and make a mark.Let us willingly and happily embrace new paths that can move us from the cross road to the road of success.