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Lakshmi Narayanan

Obsessive and constant communication, with employees as well as customers, holds the key to better performance in the knowledge industry called IT.

Communication needs can never be easily satiated. No matter how much we try, there always seems to be a lack of communication somewhere. This is all the more true in the knowledge industry such as IT, where there is an incomparable thirst for information and knowledge at all levels. Everyone wants to know every bit of everything — about business, about strategies, about competition, about issues, about trends, and about opportunities. One needs to have answers to the endless strings of whys and whens. Why did my company do this? Why does my company not do that? And these answers need to be forthright and candid. Half-truths can be devastating— and that means the nerve to say things as they are.

The feeling of a team comes out of this `knowing everything' and this means communicating consciously and continuously. I do this `sharing' and `collaborating' as much as possible with everyone in Cognizant, and encourage communicating across all layers of the organisation, using both the formal and the informal modes of communication. The formal modes of communication include Aware — our in-house newsletter, Cognizantonline — our enterprise information portal, Channelone — our enterprise knowledge portal, e-mail and periodic global meetings, net-sessions, webcasts, audio conferences and video conferences.

These mediums of communication help in disseminating structured information with a predictable and pre-defined periodicity.

On the other hand, open houses, discussion forums and chat sessions help in less formal and informal communication. Likewise, using Communities of Practice — communication and deliberation sessions with a group that has like functional and intellectual frequencies — we disseminate customised information using out-bound camps, strategy sessions and chill-out sessions. In situations such as Communities of Practice, we consciously intertwine both formal and informal modes of communication.

The power of the grapevine

Traditionally, across industries, hierarchies have been the preferred mode of communication to pass down or bring up information, with filtering happening at different levels. Where Cognizant differs from others is that the communication is never allowed to percolate through scaffolding layers of individuals. We believe in the broadcast mode, communicating to the entire organisation in one go — something that I have realised works better in most contexts.

E-mails act as the best informal medium of communication, wherein anyone can communicate on any subject to anyone across the board, individually or in groups. This informal communication is a great point in our industry, characterised by young people who want to share everything and stay abreast of what's happening around them. The need for information is so high and immediate that it cannot be addressed through formal means alone. And in most situations, the value of the information communicated resides in its immediacy of use.

World leaders such as George Bush, when addressing convocations or when talking to military personnel, talk about some economic policies too — that may appear irrelevant. But the idea is to communicate what one wants to, and also to use a section of the people to communicate that to the rest of the group. Senior members in Cognizant, including me, whenever we interact with small sections of people, talk about plans and what we want to communicate to the group. Time and again, I have noticed that the information spreads rapidly to the rest of the organisation. Also, in that context, the people who receive that information feel good that someone has chosen `them' as a vehicle to communicate and that only `they' are privy to some information — at least for a short while — that the rest of the organisation does not know. This medium makes communication more effective.

Hub and spoke mode for holistic communication

An inward-outward communication, based on the hub and spokes concept, is something that we've used effectively for internal and external communication. First, that communication has to be both ways, not just from the leader to the organisation, but also from the employees to the senior management and to the rest of the organisation. We ensure this happens through 360-degree formal communication and surveys such as the Business Effectiveness Survey (BES), Internal Satisfaction Survey (ISS) and leadership survey through Assessment Centers, or through slightly informal get together in the form of open houses.

Other forms of communication include communication with customers and analysts, which are equally important. Especially in the context of the Indo-Pakistan simmering tension, the thumb rule I applied was to communicate, communicate and communicate to each customer and analyst the status of the perceived stand-off— on almost an hourly-to-daily basis, sharing all information we had from published articles in the media, professional and trade bodies, consulates and chambers of commerce, and the like.

Another instance is the Customer Satisfaction Survey (CSS) that we conduct annually, where we get the feedback on our performance for every customer and communicate the results of the survey to the respective stakeholders with the company. We also have an annual customer confluence called `Cognizant Community' where all our customers and prospects meet up at an exotic location (last year we met up at Hotel Del Coronado at San Diego — the preferred hotel of Marilyn Monroe) to communicate, discuss and share strategies, plans and performance.

Good listening is also a pre-requisite for successful communication. For us in Cognizant, forums such as BES, ISS, and Open Houses are great `listening posts' and the value that we get out of these feedback sessions is inestimable.

Home-grown tools help

Apart from our pioneering effort with the annual Cognizant Community event, we give utmost importance to customer communication. In the onsite-offshore model where the customer does not directly oversee what's happening in India, he has little clue of the progress and timelines unless we communicate obsessively. This is critical, and as an organisation, we do have people, processes and technologies in place for it. Our home-spun e-Cockpit, a Web-based project management and decision support tool, helps customers be informed about the status of the project, milestones achieved and other routine stuff like productivity, defect density, and the like. This tool ensures that the customers are overwhelmed with the information they look for in real time.

Well, despite using all manifests of technology and communicating with all stakeholders — employees, both current and prospective, customers, research and financial analysts, journalists et al — there always seems to be a need for more communication. Whenever I think I have communicated, I invariably go back and start all over again in another medium — as everyone wants to know more in this knowledge industry!

(The author is President and COO, Cognizant Technology Solutions)

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