Work Culture-2 (Ruthlessness and Consistent Excellence!)
The statement: "I am Ruthless…don't mess around with me!" fills our heart with some sort of fear. A fear of committing a mistake, a fear of being casual and being looked down upon by the people who matter the most in our environment. But this word can acquire different meanings, when understood in short term or a longer term. In short term, yes, it can be a tough one to handle but just imagine a long term implication of an attitude which represents Ruthlessness when it comes to the following parameters:
1. Attainment of Vision of a company
2. Abiding by the mission of the company
3. No compromise on the Quality parameters set by the founding team
4. Strive for Excellence
Sometimes, in building an environment which keeps everyone happy, we change the environment of the organization so much that it may become unrecognizable from the past image and deviated from its path to glory. Lets ask ourselves, as an individual, have we been able to keep everyone happy around us? Even if we have tried, we have deviated from our natural instincts, haven't we? The forces that work in an organization are even more complex and follow entirely different laws. Is it possible to keep everyone happy and still be on track of attainment of vision? Well, lets just keep questioning, lets see if we can boil down to an answer.
An organization begins with a goal which should be profound and the founders should have immense belief in themselves and in the vision statement. The first phase, the duration of which can vary, depends on the founders' unfailing aggression and dedication. Then it enters the second phase, when the thoughts of scaling up get embryonic and new people, the future leaders start joining the wonderful environment. Now, there comes a huge challenge. The founders were already united by a vision, can the same be said about the people who follow? I guess, not. If the recruitments have been well executed, then the best that can be said about people who join is that they have aligned some of their goals with this organization. These goals may vary and these variations are the agents of chaos!
Well, the organization has grown after being joint by the future stakeholders. Now, with the elements of change already being inducted into the environment there are two ways of going ahead. Lets take an example. Imagine a strong magnetic environment which was stable. Now we introduce small magnets in this environment. What will happen? If these magnets were just magnets, the environment will force the smaller magnets to align themselves to enhance the stability of the ecosystem. Now introduce the human factor to these magnets and we will observe that the alignment process will become tougher to execute. This misalignment will lead to internal strain and the stability factor will go for a toss. The first obvious step that the leaders will take is to try and align everyone to the organization's objectives and culture. The irony of the situation is, in doing so, they will initiate a possibility of change in the objectives and culture. A culture which consisted of well aligned minds suddenly transforms into these minds tying too hard to align others. But we cannot escape these trials, can we? Everyone won't be able to understand the organization on day one, they will need time. A better argument may be, how much time do the leaders think they have? If they have well defined targets then they have a well defined time as well.
In this process of inducting the youngsters of the organization, the leaders will always be confronted with a question. Should they keep everyone happy? Ask any leader, and show me one who would say he doesn't want his people to be happy. Some people who will align themselves with the Organization will take the path to happiness and growth and one day will come to a position where they can re-define the culture if need be. But there will be others who may not take this path, refuse an alignment and transform into rebels. Being right or wrong is always relative and will depend on the environment we are a part off so these rebels being wrong is not a conclusion.
A company is an economic ecosystem where the consistency of quality output and excellence at whatever we do will define the growth and sustenance. If the leaders start investing too much in trying to make everyone happy they might miss a trick. Let us see, how:
Possible case scenario:
1. Company is founded with well defined vision and objectives
2. A beautiful culture of hard work, aggression and happiness is woven by the founders and some close allies
3. Company grows and the phase-1 ends
4. Phase-2 begins with induction of new generation of people
5. The alignment process begins
6. There are hurdles in the process due to some people turning into rebels due to different objectives
7. Leaders start investing too much time in trying to stabilize the environment
8. Output quality and excellence at work compromised
9. Consumer satisfaction comes down
10. Company's growth affected
11. The happier lot of people also turns dissatisfied and the culture changes even further.
Majority of people of a company will always be happy when the company grows and stabilizes economically as only then everyone will grow and some time can be invested happily in repairing small damages if any. In the above scenario small damages are leading to larger ones because the growth is being compromised in wake of spreading happiness. Lets think differently here and analyze another case scenario:
1-6: The same growth story as above.
7. Leaders invest some stipulated time in alignment process giving limited freedom to the new ones and then move back to business
8. The rebels either get aligned with time or they are requested to leave the environment
9. Output quality and excellence goes up.
10. Consumer satisfaction goes up
11. Company grows further and we have a larger company, better profits and happier people!
The leaders should define the objectives well and should ruthlessly stick to them. I am not saying happiness shouldn't be an objective, but it should be a consequence of attainment of collective targets! Any organization which will compromise excellence at work will go down someday, because thats what it should have stood for in any situation. And everything should be linked to this excellence. Be it individual growth, appraisals, benefits and thus happiness. In the process, learning shouldn't stop and should only be used to enhance the culture of excellence. When I say Ruthlessness, the perception shouldn't be of becoming uncaring and harsh to everyone, lets be ruthless when it come to the key objectives of the company. Lets care for the people who associate themselves with the philosophy and lets be good to everyone else whether they stay or leave the company. Lets also not suppress the questioning and reasoning tendency, but avid counter productiveness. So, Ruthlessness has a different meaning in this context.
So lets define a culture for our organization wherever we are at whatever position. A culture of excellence at work and consistent innovation leading to amazing results, immense growth and everlasting happiness. An open democracy will never lead to a successful organization. Limited and well balanced democracy with pre-planned outputs abode well for a system. Once these pillars are established, lets keep them stable at any cost or else the entire structure may falter anytime.
"A company slowly transforms into a cult, belongingness gets binary, either you do or you don't"
Lets be excellent and positively ruthless in Life and lets be a part of a happy organization forever!
Lets be the foundation or extend respect
Lets trust, believe and not suspect
Lets propel an idea or give it a miss
Lets take our company to an everlasting bliss!
...Saurabh (9.11.11)
(penned down while flying from Mumbai to Bangalore)
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