The Hindu Business Line : Dr K. Jafar Ali, Director, Centre for Human Renaissance, Chennai; Preston International College

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Dr K. Jafar Ali, Director, Centre for Human Renaissance, Chennai; Preston International College

Dr K. Jafar Ali, Director, Centre for Human Renaissance, Chennai, addressing students ofthe Preston International College, Chennai.

Our Bureau Chennai, Nov. 27

Business leaders and managers today face several challenges in the context of the global business environment including the corporate culture, communication style, organisational direction, decision-making and feedback mechanisms.

According to Dr K. Jafar Ali, Director, Centre for Human Renaissance, Chennai, the corporate, organisational and departmental culture all flow from the top-down. The written and unwritten rules, policies and philosophy of a manager or the organisation eventually find their way into the attitudes and performance of almost everyone in the organisation.

Dr Jafar was addressing students of the Preston International College, Chennai, at a BL Club event presented by Karur Vysya Bank.

Critical things

One of the critical things to remember when dealing with people is: you get the behaviour you reward. “If the culture directly or indirectly rewards a certain type of attitude or behaviour, you are, by your actions or inactions, probably reaffirming that these are acceptable,” he said.

“If you want to change employee behaviour, you must first evaluate the existing culture that may be rewarding the type of behaviour you are getting but don't necessarily want,” he said.

Rumours, hearsay, memos, e-mails, meetings, individual counseling sessions and bulletin boards all had one thing in common — they communicate information — some more effectively and timely than others.

If communication in an organisation is top-down, it is not in touch with the realities of the organisation, the marketplace, its customers or suppliers.

One of the biggest challenges managers faced today is effectively communicating corporate direction to all the employees, who have a right and a need to know. Most organisations do a poor job of this, at best. One way to find out what employees really think is to conduct an anonymous survey of attitudes, perceptions and opinions.

Many managers make decisions that other employees will either have to implement or that will affect them. If these decisions are made without bottom-up feedback, the outcome is sure to be less than desired or expected.

Employees want to know how they are doing — whether poorly or well. Failure to give them the feedback they need is to keep them in the dark regarding their performance and how and where they need to improve.

There are a number of conditions that impact the roles of managers today. A few of them are: greater cultural diversity; several distinctive employee age-groups; increased impact and use of technology; a growing international market place; ethical standards that are unclear or inconsistent; greater stress levels among all employees; corporate direction and strategy under fire by consumers; the desire of employees for greater independence and autonomy; increased consumer choices for products and services; fewer specifically skilled employees; and relentless and accelerating change.

Managerial competencies

The ‘High Performance Managerial Competencies' relate to thinking (information search, concept formation, conceptual flexibility), development (interpersonal search, managing interaction, developmental orientation), inspiration (impact, self-confidence, presentation) and achieving (Proactive orientation, achieving orientation). Budding managers should develop all the above competencies for managerial success.

Every young manager needs to emerge as a talent bank by himself or herself with multiple critical competencies. “We need to prove ourselves as star performers at the workplace in order to protect our job security and career progress despite a deep and long downturn,” he said.

Mr M.M. Ashroff, Director, was also present at the occasion.

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