Great Workplaces

Rajesh Kumar Simple Attributes that form

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Great Workplaces

http://tinyurl.com/rkumar

Prayer Forty Years, Ten Thousand Four Hundred Days, Eighty Three Thousand Three Hundred Hours… I will spend so much of my lifetime for no other activity in this life. Neither my parents, nor my spouse or Children will boast of such a share of my time. I live a major part of my life in my work place. God, bless me with a great workplace.

Forward There is much written about the attributes of great workplaces. A simple search in Google will keep you busy for light years. I do not claim to be very different. I leave it to the reader to see value in the article that follows:

The Background The generally agreed upon definition of Organizational culture is “the way things get done in an organization.” Apart from the three employers I have worked with, I have spent hundreds of hours listening to my peers and colleagues talk about their workplaces. I now live with a universal appreciation of the Dilbert principles. I know now that the pimples of small workplaces are acnes of larger ones. Most of the time, it’s the same shit that you have to live with, in varying degrees. I am, in this article, bringing to one space my random observations of attributes of a great workplace. Most of it, as you would have guessed by now, is aspirational in nature. I am sure that not all the attributes that I write about will be available in any one workplace. The real life great workplaces are made out of bits and pieces of these attributes. Before I put this to words, I asked a couple of my friends in various industries their definition of a great workplace. I was surprised to note a common thread running through their responses. In almost all cases, great workplaces are known only in hindsight. You will not really appreciate your current workplace until you have moved on to a sadder workplace! There remains much more to be written in this area, however, let me leave you with this thought…. A cursory look behind the evidently visible doors and windows of an establishment may give you inkling about things to come. Cleanliness in places beyond and behind line of sight is a key indicator. Happy Read…

Executive Summary Great workplaces are not necessarily full of great people, where people fail they have world-class processes. I have listed four areas in which great workplaces will excel over the rest. These are:

1. 2. 3. 4.

Customer Culture People Process

For obvious reasons, I have placed

Customer first. Organizations exist to cater

to the needs of its customers, else, why occupy so much space (physical or virtual)?

Culture is defined as the way things get done in an organization. If sleeping with your supervisor helps you gets two back-to-back promotions, well, you will end up sleeping with a lot of people and would have discovered an alternate profession too. And when you become the super boss, you will breed a whole generation of whores and gigs in your organization. Wonder what will happen to those who believe that they need to just work hard to become somebody in your organization!

People Populate. They fill the checkerboards of an organization and each other’s lives. They are the cause and the effect of all our winnings and losses. In the movie Matrix, Morpheus told Neo: “The Matrix is a system, Neo. That system is our enemy. But when you're inside, you look around. What do you see? Businessmen, teachers, lawyers, carpenters. The very minds of the people we are trying to save. But until we do, these people are still a part of that system, and that makes them our enemy. You have to understand; most of these people are not ready to be unplugged. And many of them are so inert, so hopelessly dependent on the system that they will fight to protect it. A workplace is like the Matrix; its culture is the programming. People, its energy cells!

Process is the heart that pumps blood through the sinews of an organization. Where processes fail, the organization gets a seizure.

Lets analyze attributes under the above-mentioned headings one by one.

CCuussttoom meerr

11..

Healthy mix between what customer wants and new initiatives ••

22..

Do not sell a Mercedes where a Fire-Tender is required! A great workplace is connected to what customer wants. Too many start ups have burnt up like meteors, they were busy pushing their agenda to customers. Customers have their bums on fire just like anybody else, instead of a fire-tender; you can’t sell them a Mercedes.

Keeps Things Simple ••

Too much of anything is actually just that… too much! And one thing that is always too much in Information. Do not make it your management mantra to zap customers with too many complicated process diagrams and GUI charts; this will always lead to misery. In a great workplace, Customers are woed and wowed in the language they understand.

33..

Markets oneself vigorously ••

44..

I speak to my friends and colleagues in the great consulting firms of the world. Most of the time, it’s the same shit that they have to deal with, red tapes and stupid supervisors. But, they would not exchange their place with a lesser mortal. Reason, Their organization is all over the TVs and newspapers. Some have Tiger Woods hitting tsunami bells for them while others claim loudly that they are increasing the commonsense quotient for the planet. It does not matter whether my friends believe these greatness stories or not, they are still proud by association!

World Class Sales Team ••

In the height of recent recession, millions of IT geeks were and still continue to be on the bench. Indian IT firms have come up with a novel term to reduce salaries by half and benefits by three quarters, they call it the “virtual pool.” In this pool you are like a buffalo (Indians would know a buffalo when they see one!). All you have to do is wallow in virtual-ity until the company finds a project to make you billable! Even when three quarters of young IT workforce lives under this dread of virtual living, there are companies that are aggressively hiring! They hired through out the recession and continue to hire today as if there is no tomorrow! How do they do it? They have world a class Sales Team.

CCuullttuurree 11.. Thrives on Great Stories ••

“That hillock is where Wesley Sahib fell from his Horse and broke his hands; it will do well for the new Assistant Manager to wear helmets all time when riding Royal Enfield (India’s Harley D). This is just one of the hundreds of folklores that define the way executives, staff members, workers and trade union members live and survive on Indian plantations. They have brilliant, insightful stories of successes and courage, caution and laughter, challenges and hardships that they share with every new comer, and every new generation that is born.

22.. Clear Ethics, No Grey Areas ••

Some years ago one of the highflying team colleagues working with me was called into Chairman’s office one afternoon. No one ever saw her in the organization from that point onwards! Later, we were intimated that the lady was asked to leave as during her joining, she had kept mum of certain aspects of her spouse’s occupation, which was in direct conflict with our firm’s area of business.

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The organization in which this happened was not the best of the places to work. It had major issues in performance management! But its attitude towards what was ethical and non-ethical was black and white, and our clients admired us for the same.

33.. Creates Traditions ••

On my first day at my first job, a senior colleague drove me around the property (it was a rubber plantation) and introduced me to my would-be reportees. He gave me lunch at his bungalow and sent out his driver that evening for me to visit the local town store for provisions. I barely knew this guy!

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Over the years, I went on to do the same for at least a dozen new hires who joined during my tenure with this organization. Looking back, my senior colleague would have done it whether he liked it or not, it was the company tradition! But as a new hire, young and fresh out of college, it gave me loads of confidence being around people who could seemingly go so out of the way to make me feel at home on the first day. Traditions do that.

44.. Decisions derived from Information ••

“I am in the business of paying salaries!” said the Chairman of one of the organizations I worked for. He was right! Some organizations exist merely to keeps its promoters engaged. In such an organization, decisions are based on impromptu “gut feelings.” Such organizations are in a constant flux and boast of being an evolving organization from the day they were born to twenty years later! Nothing remains permanent for long, policies processes clients business segments; everything keeps shifting. Confounded employees live in a constant

stupor in these organizations and quit confused. It takes time to recover from such roller coaster rides!

55.. Demands and insists Managers to be more than OLD (One Level Deep) ••

Q: What is your name? A: Rajesh Kumar. Q: What does Rajesh mean? A:…. I will get back to you on this..!!!

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Q: How is the Server scenario? A: Good! Q: What was our last month’s downtime? A: ….err. I will get back to you!!!

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There are organizations in which the OLD syndrome plays around each day at conferences, review meetings, and business presentations. Such workplaces would screw the happiness out of employees who seek greater information before arriving at decisions. The OLD syndrome causes Enrons and Satyams of this world.

66.. On Top of Trends ••

Does it matter if it were Sony Corps or Apple that created portable music?

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GE, 3M(MMM), Nokia Corp, is all examples of companies who are bigger than nations but continue to persistently be on top of trends.

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Working with an organization who aspires to be on top of trends is a challenging and enriching experience. Very few of us ever get to live that life.

77.. Premium on Action, Penalty on Inaction ••

Out on a hunting trip one night, our Remington headlights caught a rabbit trawling in the night! The moment the beam of light caught the rabbit, it went into a deep freeze, and did not move an inch. And that inch would have decided whether

it landed on our plates that night or survived for another fight. We took the dead rabbit home that night! ••

Organizations who do not penalize inactions will be like dead rabbits.

88.. Promises backed by Potential not Intention ••

I had a boss once who would promise the moon to every client he met and signed on. This way, the sales force of the organization had a tough time finding new clients. Existing clients would never work with us more than once!

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Not all promises are meant to be con jobs. Often, in organizations, we readily dilute the subtle difference between potential and passionate intention. This mostly happens when the going is not all that great and you are looking forward eagerly for any business that would enable you to play this months salaries!

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The same trend becomes acceptable within the organization, in team transactions, briefing sessions and sundry. This is a one-way street. It eats away into your credibility like a cancer. No chemo is available.

99.. A Spade is A Spade ••

During the induction of new recruits to organizations that I have worked with, I share with them the “Raja nanga hai” (Vernacular for Hans Andersen’s famous parable “The Emperor’s New Clothes).” http://hca.gilead.org.il/emperor.html

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There is another story that I share with young recruiter, the story of how a modest King who did not want to be rude to his queen and princess ended up with a kingdom full of nude women (wow!). http://tinyurl.com/n3eteo

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1100..

Organizations where everybody is busy buttering each other’s bottoms, those with “no butter required bottoms” do not have a place! Transparency In Action

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It took 60 years for Right To Information to become the law of the land in my country, but in most organizations, it would never happen! Most organizations I work for practices what is called “Convenient Transparency.”

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This means that things are transparent up to a level where it does not put the spotlight on the ruling-class. The degree of transparency differs from department to department, designation to designation, activity to activity.

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Next to zero transparency exists in the finance and accounts functions of the organization, not because they have something big and secretive to hide (after all, you will read it in the Annual Balance Sheet!). Most of the time, the poor buggers are hiding themselves! When you do not know the answers to most of the questions you might have to face, what is it that you do? You build a wall of secrecy around you.

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Such workplaces suck in relative degrees!

PPeeooppllee 11.. Individuals Matter a. Some of the greatest feats of engineering that we see around us dwarf in presence of its yesteryear cousins. Imagine the Petronas Tower… and now imagine the Great Wall. Imagine the Statue of Liberty…now imagine the atrium. As a race we may believe that we are capable of greatness, but as individuals we fail to see this in our everyday lives. b. Great workplaces are built upon the sweat and toil of its population. And when I say sweat and toil, I do not refer it in the RED sense. An organization has to burn some fat and mould some muscle to reach anywhere in the world’s organizational history. c. In doing so, the only variable that would propel it or pull it down is its people. Great workplaces treasure the individual unit. They are prodded, guided, or discarded towards one common goal. 22.. Leaders create Leaders a. Some of the best-run organizations could not sustain and survive one exit. Leaders in such organizations did not believe in the age old adage… leaders create leaders.

b. Great workplaces are those where there is a sustained pressure on supervisors to find their replacements, else face exits. c. This keeps the organization is a constant state of hunt. Talent becomes a treasure and the talented know that someday they too will be part of this beautiful hunt. d. These workplaces also send jitters down the spine of the insecure and the greedy. They know that their love for their seats will probably get them a hasty exit, sometime with the chair as a parting gift. 33.. Manage behavior a. People are passionate and passion is good. Dynamic workplaces have people falling in love, people fighting, people grumbling and people laughing all the time. This is the sound of an great workplaces, its like sparrows and robins making merry. b. But when Sparrows and Robins make merry, there is also a lot of shit that gets strewn around. Somebody needs to control this before it becomes a Navassa (the island of poop!). c. One of the lawyers who joined the BPO unit of an Indian Software giant spent an easy 18 months with it before being transferred to its IT unit. Three months into the IT unit, he was looking for another job! One day, during his third month with this unit, he was called by site HR and asked to sign his own resignation letter, already typed and kept ready for him! Reason… he had lied in his resume about a job he had allegedly done 8 years ago. d. Workplaces with pro-active (not preventive) HR action against obviously disruptive behavior to business should keep professional engagement with the organizations at high degrees.

44.. Pain in the Ass Employee Workforce: a. There are employees and then there are militant employees. Militant employees are those who are completely unperturbed by your caste creed religion, cabin size, length of your designation or the number of zeroes in your paycheck. b. Militant employees believe that supervisors exist to make them happier at work. c. Workplaces with such a workforce keeps bureaucracy at bay and lays extreme premium on performance. d. Red Tape bleeds and work get done. 55.. Retain Proactively a. Organizations small and large have loads of orphan employees. I define orphan employees as those whom every supervisor wants to get work done out of, but no supervisor owns. b. In this ongoing war of skills, the employee sometimes becomes a tool for the advancement of disinterested supervisors. c. Great Workplaces have people centric policies. One such organization that I know has a policy that puts the power to move across verticals in the hands of the employee. He or She may apply for a different vertical and boss every 18 months! d. Another organization I know has “Grapevine Meetings,” meetings where senior management clinically analyzes gossip for symptoms of generic dissent, and take pro-active steps to address issues long before it moves into quadrant 1. e. Retain pro-actively does not imply that every time someone quits over pay, you go and give him a raise, what I mean here

has more to do with creating the right atmosphere for people to stay. f. Retention as I see it, never works in hindsight. 66.. Weeds out Double Speak a. Agreed that there is no democracy in life, and hence, none in organizations too. However, great workplaces try to walk their talk as closely as possible… all the time. b. One such organization called in one of its senior executives, an AVP, handling a million dollar project, into the CEO’s room. The CEO’s room had a private elevator. Nobody ever saw this AVP again. After 36 months of employment with this organization, it was realized, over a casual conversation that the AVP had fudged his experience, 11 years ago, to show extended employment in a company by an additional 4 months. c. He was asked to go, and so was the office boy who had forged his matriculation certificate, and the programmer who presented a fake Cognos certification! d. Great Workplaces are willing to go all the way to ensure that all under the sun are treated the same.

Work In Progress, will update this file once done. Rajesh Kumar November 19, 2009 Also on Scribd, Poem Hunter & Google Sites