Do something every day that you don't want to do; this is the golden rule for acquiring the habit of doing your duty without pain.
Mark Twain
Middle Management Positions that our free market offers are not free enough, neither for the employee nor for the employer. And whatever freedom is available with the CTC, is corrupted due to the boredom that besets organizational work. Yes, our able HR Executives will argue that there are planned a surfeit of “Activities” to keep the employees away from that insidious operator, but nothing is far from reality. Boredom Exists and if we can, someday, calculate the cost of that boredom, it will be formidable at the least.
First, according to psychologists there can be “n” number of reasons for boredom, but I will narrow them down to dwell with in the organizational ambit
Excessive hierarchy- Series of “Approvals and signatures” on a document lead to a protracted process. The intent of such formats is laudable no doubt, but the effect is lack of accountability. That dynamism of “owning up to the task” is lost and mediocrity is fostered.
The Bottleneck- Remember E.Goldratt’s “The Goal”, “If my efficiency is ascertained by the next slowest process, I’d better work at that pace”.
The Job Allocated: If what is to be done is not at par with the capacity of the employee, but above or below her working average, rethink allocation!
How high may I fly: Stagnation. “However hard I work, there is no recognition, leave aside rewards.”
Partiality: This follows us right from the primary school classrooms up to the corporate board-rooms.
Like I said, “n” number of reasons. The underlying malaise for most of these is fortunately (or unfortunately) is lack of empowerment. Employees, the productive ones (there are two types of these, One-who really do the job well, Two-those who want to show that they can do the job well!) need that push that the mother eagle gives to her eaglets so that they venture out in to the skies! In organizational context, this push is Empowerment.
In their book “Blue Ocean Strategy” Chan Kim and Renee Mauborgne, both professors from INSEAD, discuss how to “CREATE” virgin market spaces, the Blue (unexplored) Oceans away from the Red Oceans of bloody competition. This book deals essentially with marketing. But I find its application almost as much in HR as in Marketing. It was Vineet Nayyar of HCL Technologies, who, for the first time used this term. And believe me, it is a mesmerizing one.
THE BLUE OCEAN EMPLOYEE EXPERIENCE
He equated a company to a big group of several sub-companies. Each of these subs’s handled by a group of employees. Now each employee is the owner of his sub. The performance of the sub is her performance and vice-versa. This concept is not a virgin one. It has been tried in the Garment industry where it is called a modular system of manufacturing. The only requirement of this system is that the people in the process should be dynamic and Multi skilled. It is the process that makes them such. They own up to collective success or failure, they make better team-workers, they do quality work and the co-ordination amongst the team members is such that occasional absence of one team member does not hamper the productivity of the group.
This is what the 21st century knowledge economy is all about.
Empowerment will not make breakthrough, but it will definitely make a space for it. That is what we have to do, make a space, a void and then fill it!
I seem to be savoring a little pedantry, but let me present an improvisation. The first rule of empowerment is to “value” contributions, any contribution to the organizational goal, to give space to ideas, any idea that is reasonably positive. This works as a message “Your contribution is Valuable, Keep giving”, “Your ideas are helping us think, Pour in!” Everybody likes feeling important. Imagine a birthday with nobody to wish you!
Sam Walton appreciates competition with in the organization, but he clarifies that pitting one against another is not the same as creating factions within. Beware of factions, if you see somebody making them, break them. But they are not so evident, and so the remedy is to be proactive and nip them in the bud. Factions are the No.1 enemy of the organization. They make it fall within! Imagine a family in which children do not love their parents, Fallout is similar for organizations with schisms- You are then empowering schisms.
All of us have subtle preferences, and as long as they are subtle, it’s okay. But if they are evident then they will simply feed gossip! Everybody wants to be the boss’s favorite but the boss should like being Everyone’s favorite i.e. IMPARTIAL BEHAVIOUR.
In Guy Finley’s words,
Everything and everybody that resists correction is part of the problem.
Empowerment speaks when one respects one’s job, value’s oneself as an important link not as a cog in the wheel which can be easily replaced. It speaks when a mistake can be pinned down to one process. Not playing pass!
There will be theories and suggestions galore for posterity and later, but the execution is the main problem! We know it is good, but how to go about doing it. Whose function is it to empower the employees-HR or Top Management! We’d say both! But that is the part of the problem! Something that one OR the other could do, and consequently neither did! But is it a function at all? I object! Empowerment is not anybody’s function. It is a policy. If employees are empowered, it is there in the fabric of the organization. Can appreciation be a function? Can “Impartial Behavior” be a function? These are values, not functions or responsibilities.
“I work with the XYZ concern” OR “I work in the XYZ concern” there is a whale of a difference! Let’s be the first statement!
Have a Good Day!!
-Ettishri B Rajput
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