Business to the Buddha

Tag: organization culture

  • Politics, self-interest and the results

    I started writing on self-interest. However, the larger scheme of things conspired to include politics in it. Most of the time, self-interests do less good than the general betterment of everyone. All of us apply self-interest in many ways. At times, the actor is unaware that his/her actions are driven by self-interest. However, most of the time actions are more motivated with the expected end result in mind – self-interest. Self-interest that is called profit maximizing approach in game theory. However, in game theory you’ve an opponent; here the case we’re going to discuss is related to self vs the larger public good.

    A humble Indian farmer

    Recently, a final closure of Brexit has happened, we have seen farmer protest in India and even the western countries are talking about it as if the law impacts their farmers.

    Self-interest

    The king was talking to his confidant. The confidant was none other than his younger brother. He told his brother – why are you just a spectator in the courtroom? We have studied together, you know the subjects, law, and Ethics as much or better than the other ministers. You must take part in day-to-day activities and decision making discussions.

    The confidant was very insightful; he knew the functioning of the courtroom, decision makings of the kingdom, and a great deal about the ministers. A great observant, yet a humble right-hand man of the king. He responded – you are correct my brother, it is not that I have limited understanding. In the courtroom, many have their self-interest ahead of other things. Many times decisions are not made in the best interest of the kingdom but in the self-interest of the most powerful in that regard.

    I will quote a recent example. It is regarding our dispute with the neighboring kingdom for the distribution of water of the common river. Our ministers proposed a solution either based on incomplete information, or the detailed information was not shared with the committee. The reason? Our minister wanted to influence the decision in support of the other kingdom, reasons may be best known to the minister. The whispers are that minister’s brother-in-law lives and own the land touching the river and could benefit most from our agreement. The minister is corrupt and it is not unknown in the whole ministry; am I right, brother?

    The King knew all of this. He took a pause and responded. At times, you have to close an eye for the larger good of society. Let us assume we had not budged on the water agreement, it might have resulted in a war – however, limited it could be.

    The confidant said – that does not absolve you of your duty as a king, you have the power to get rid of the minister! The minister, though was not as powerful as the king, knew the inner workings of the ministry so he could rebel. At last, the king was also working in the self-interest of staying in power.

    Results

    This is how even the less powerful control the kingdom. This is how democracy undermines good governance too. An example is recent farm law protest in India. Though personally I could not make my mind for or against it as such. At times this is how organizations are at the ransom of these less powerful yet resourceful people. At times these insiders can damage the organization more than the benefit they may offer. Greed and self-interest can make a kingdom or government or an organization average or at worst failed one. There are umpteen examples of this – the Kuru clan in Mahabharat, most likely Pakistan (or other examples of the Middle East of the early 2010s) in coming years or read the HBR article. 

    In essence, though I find it difficult to write – “politics is not bad”. I may not be particularly good at it. However, the self-interest that drives many actions and decisions end up making few organizations or kingdoms average or moderately successful if not a failure. And lastly, self-interest defeats the concept of interdependence – interdependent co-arising.

  • From spoiled trouser to organization culture







    It happened a couple of years back when I was on vacation. I received an invitation for speaker engagement over a weekend. Who take formals on vacation? It was an eleventh hour request from a very respected business association on organization culture and innovation. I could not reject that invitation. I borrowed a trouser from my friend for attending this event.

    While washing the borrowed trouser, it was spoiled by color of my father’s trouser. I was on vacations and markets were closed as weekly closure. I had no choice but to wear this borrowed trouser for this presentation. On a lighter note – I am not such a bad friend who will borrow your cloths and spoil them ;). I do not do such things often.

    Since the presentation was on a short notice, I had been thinking for examples on my toes. This peculiar situation helped me understand a trait of organization culture. In fact I used this to make a point about organizational culture as well as my weird dressing; yes I wore that trouser for presentation.

    Organization culture

    For explanation let me call these trousers – borrowed trouser as T1 and my father’s trouser as T2.

    The original color of T2 was washed away easily. However; when the same color stuck on T1 the color did not wash that easily. I had no choice but to wear the spoiled pant – T1. My father’s trouser – T2 was not my size. Well what I learnt about organizational culture from this incident was this –

    1. Building a good organization culture takes time and this cultural habit needs to stick with the organization. As the color should have stuck to the trouser T2.
    2. If the activity of culture building is not taken seriously, the wrong habits may stick more often than the right habits. Wrong habit here relates to the color on T2 that spoiled the borrowed trouser T1. The bad habits leave a bad impression, make amendment difficult, time consuming and in worst case impossible.

    Right organization culture is very important for any organization, but it does not get built overnight. Once the culture is built, it is difficult to change it.

    If the color on the trouser T2 were strong, it would not have spoiled the borrowed trouser T1. It is easy to mold new employees to the organization culture. It is possible for new employees to get molded to the existing organization culture like my borrowed trouser T1 got spoiled.

    If an organization wants to maintain certain culture it has to depict this culture everywhere in its dealings. Be it treating its employees, clients, vendors and the whole society. The way an organization executes its business –operations, policies, analytical thinking, innovation and following laws of the land et al sets the tone.

    Coming back to the trousers, it was later impossible to wash away the spot of colors on T1. I did two things –

    1. Bought a new trouser for my friends
    2. I got trouser T1 colored in dark color. Trouser became like new, I gave it back to my friend.

    Alas! this is not possible for an organization.

    Learning

    Just imagine had the trouser T1 been an organization, what would have been the situation, impact and performance of the company. I was in an easy situation, solution was quick and effective. Imagine the management of the organization if they get into a bad organizational culture, it won’t be that easy to change the culture.

    Paint employee in the organization cultureIt is said that old habits die hard. It is better to form good habits in the start itself. However, it is never too late, sometimes organization needs to make tough choices, change is always fought by the established norms, and therefore it becomes difficult to bring change. If senior management wants the change to become a norm they need to lead by example. Say for example if management wants to inculcate data driven culture in organization, management has to make it clear to everyone – “every decision should be backed by data, no decision will be made by gut feel or random idea”.

    Bottom line for startups and entrepreneurs – if you color trouser T2 well, trouser T1 wont be get spoiled. If you take care of the organization culture from the start it is easy to maintain it.

    Image source – http://www.actiongroup.com.ar/cambio-cultural/

    Thanks to Nilesh Yeram, my colleague who suggested using the above image.

    Originally I have published this article on LinkedIn here, this article is modified here.

  • Change – is it welcome?







    I have a garden. Actually, I had a bit of open space.  It was an opportunity not to be ignored and I converted that open space into a garden. After a while, I put in some plants.  I however felt that the order, organization and quality of the garden could be improved. People visiting and sitting there felt good about the open space converted to a garden but were not happy about the quality of plants and some things which they could not articulate.

    I was obsessed with the success of converting the space into an acceptable garden. One day a respected person whose hobby was gardening visited and suggested that I should bring in more fresh plants and improve the look and feel. I followed the advice, brought new plants and planted them in the available space. That did not solve the problem. A few weeks later, these new plants could not survive. Some died/dried and some lost their beauty. I again asked for help from the same person. He asked to see the new plants that I had brought into the garden, I told him about those plants. He said that those were not suitable plants for that particular garden, for the climate this city. [This is our habit, we try to find out wrong with the possible change]

    He further added, “Why don’t you try different plants?” I did it again; this time too the results were no different. Now, I thought that I should go to some expert. Fortunately, I met one, shared my problem with him and gave him the history of the last couple of months. He too shared the same opinion as the hobbyist.  He however added that my plantation and watering process had issues, I should have put in some fertilizers etc.

    I was not convinced – Once bitten twice shy. This time, instead of relying on just advice and suggestions I asked a professional farmer/gardener to visit my garden. He came, I offered him some coffee; we discussed what had been happening and we visited my garden. He said everything was right but, you did not weed out the weeds! I didn’t understand so with all humility I asked him – to explain.  He said – “Pravin, over time, if you miss out on opportunities, if you overlook a few things, some plants become susceptible of weeds and unwanted – not good – plants also grow in the ground. At times this happens because of the soil with which your new plants were planted. That soil might have had those weed seeds.

    “So what is the solution?” I again asked him humbly.

    He said – before investing any further in your garden, you do a few things. Firstly make your garden worthy of new plants. Secondly, take care of the soil and make it a habit to water and fertilize the ground. After a couple of weeks go to the market, bring suitable plants for your garden, capable of flourishing in the local climate.

    Lastly, remember that you cannot leave your garden at god’s mercy. You have to keep an eye on it, keep on investing in fertilizer, watering, weeding etc and keep on maintaining the garden. Perhaps, find a person who can do all this over a period of time, if you are finding it difficult to do so yourself.

    Now replace as following –

    Garden as your organization.

    Plants as your employees – some of whom make the garden grow weeds!

    Water, ground, soil as culture and future (strategy)

    New plants – new hires

    Valuable advisers – You know who are they.

    PS – This is just a story, author does not own any land, not even a wheel of bicycle, forget owning material thing 🙂

    This was just a way to express how Organization change can fail. For knowing more on Change Management please reach the Author