The Hindu Business Line : What's the new age about?

Is there one? And, how would you define it? Originally used for a motley assembly of people with unusual tastes in music, clothes and ways of living, it was a follow on from the 1960s , but endured into the last two decades of the 20th century. It symbolised the free and easy, casual, open ways of the youth in California and the US West Coast with a strong flavour of yoga, tai-chi, zen, meditation, alternative therapy, fusion music, organic foods, pacifism, egalitarianism and trust.

Friday dressing

The use of the term New Age in connection with managers is metaphorical yet real. The common elements are visible. For the young manager setting out on a long corporate safari, it is worth pondering over what these are. How much of it is really accepted, how much is hype, or is it a new era altogether? These are good questions, but tough to answer except in a general way.

In new age attire, the very popular terms `Friday dressing' in office and `smart casual' to describe the sort of dress you are expected to wear for a business-related evening are good examples. In speech, the widespread adoption of the first name is another big change. In the still very age-conscious conservative southern parts of India, where mentioning a senior person's name is still confused with disrespect, people have tended to use initials, both in referring to a person and in even talking to him. So the MD becomes NR (or whatever)and is not called by his given name, which might be Raghavan.

Canteen lunches have long become uniform for all, but now it is far more common to see self-service and, more recently, washing one's own plate, even if perfunctorily, afterwards. Even in the staid precincts of the sahib's clubs, no longer do people dress formally for dinner and one day the tie and formal shirt and proper shoes might go! The expert wielding of knives and forks is no longer seen as a sign of sophistication or class.

`Green' talk

Yet, the emergence of much more intermingling of the levels of organisation along with Western European and American executives as colleagues and associates, will certainly work somewhat the other way. Deliberately scruffy looks are certainly not on, except probably in the creative nooks and crannies of the organisation — which allow tattoos and nose rings and ponytails — such as advertising andR&D, and some kinds of software work milieus. Cuisine has become much more international. Finger-food platters are the order of the day, with everything from burgers and satays to kebabs, even in the staid British commercial circles, for working lunches.

Social concerns such as affirmative action, gender equality, conservation of the environment and anti-pollution measures are norms of the day. It is no longer the minority who talk of "green" product design or manufacturing processes. The reality of spiralling energy costs as well as global terrorism has helped bring the agendas of disparate groups closer together. These days, a new age thinker is one who is more of a liberal, eco-friendly, open, trust-based, participative person and has a supportive managerial style. As a corporation it would keep far away from the "greed is good" way of life.

For a New Age manager, business will have an increasingly international flavour. Whether we want it or not, the world's competition is at our doorstep. Competition for a paradoxical `high quality along with lower cost' would be the mainstream mode of thinking. This dictates rapid and flexible learning and adjusting to ever-new situations.

The workplace will be more flexible, changeable and even unbounded. Working from home and telecommuting will increase, but the office will never disappear — it might change character to being a central place for the minimum necessary face-to-face meetings rather than the main focal point of all work. The customer, supplier and manufacturer will have interchangeable roles and functions. No single description will fit all situations.

This apart, the workspace (rather than the workplace) could determine the type and complexity of interactions. Travel has already become much less expensive; thanks to competition, multi-location workspaces will not be a rare thing in the future.

Entrepreneur mindset

The nature of the contracts will have undergone a major shift. A greater proportion of the pay will be variable depending on the performance of the person and the organisation. Short term contracts and assignments will be necessary for professionals the higher one goes, and the more professional and specialised one's knowledge and skills. Clearly, the lifelong career in one company is out — so too in fact, the career in one industry, given the spate of technology-driven and market-driven mergers and acquisitions. Everyone will have to develop the entrepreneur mindset.

Each of us is in fact marketing our service, as it were, to a diverse market — a situation which hitherto only people like lawyers, auditors and doctors were used to.

The role of the customer will change dramatically — no longer merely passive recipients of what the experts in their wisdom choose to provide, but ready to participate in the design, development and creation of value.

`Touch-point' operation

A big change needed is to see marketing as everyone's job. Sensitivity to customers is not just a specialist trait that belongs to marketing people. More people will increasingly operate at the `touch-points' or the fingertips of the organisation where a customer meets and feels the provider of the service or product. Spending a day in the life of the customer in order to see the world as she sees it and experiences it (not just the product) would offer many valuable insights into where the product that you market fits into her life-space.

That ought to drive a more user-friendly product design. More companies might test the "beta" version, as software companies such as Microsoft, Google, and Netscape do nowadays. More products will feel like services (when the hardware element is same or similar across the industry); and services will be commoditised, as with mechanised or electronic banking — unless distinguished by outstanding service.

All this will call for a more creative and innovative way of living and working. So think about it, and let us know what you think would be an appropriate response. To look to a packaged answer from somebody else is, I would suggest, the antithesis of being creative.

(The writer, a former Director of IFMR, is a management consultant)

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