Organisational life can be an object of endless fascination, if one can learn to live with the occasional frustrations and irritations. For one thing, it is never entirely predictable, even if the problems that crop up during a typical working day may in hindsight seem classifiable into one or another of the chapters from one’s text book on organisations and people that are used in the formal management degrees.

In reality, of course, you can never tell what the morrow will bring; and every day can present a new opportunity for learning.

If you are a manager still under 40 you might still recall vividly some of the words of wisdom from your teachers at college or the business school. In general, text books and case studies tend to bring out the need for collaboration, harmony and working in consonance with the organisation’s goals and with team-members. The unwritten assumption is that co-operating and seeing eye-to-eye is good for all – ensuring that, to use a current vogue phrase, everyone is reading from the same hymn book, and are on the same page.

Yet, the writer’s experience and what one has heard from many others suggest that this ideal world is seldom seen in life.

Some organisations are more comfortable environments to work in than others; some indeed are more organised, better structured, more efficient and so on but few escape the frustrations of clashing egos, personal agenda and what is universally labelled as typical office politics.

One of the ways that the new entrant can be helped to get properly acclimatised and settled in, is to put him under the right kind of mature senior, a practice that the older companies used to adopt long before mentoring became a fashionable word. One of the earliest such seniors that I worked under had a simple formula in dealing with trainees: he was personally responsible in the early stages for their learning. If the learner has not learnt, the teacher has not taught, he used to declare, even when he pulled you up for some obvious shortcoming in your performance. He recognised that it was not for want of trying but lack of experience, and that the process of learning on the job was a dual, shared responsibility. Yet, mind you, he was not even a graduate, let alone holder of a professional degree. All the same, he did not believe in spoon-feeding or molly-coddling the young.

He did not suffer from any mother-hen complex, of being overly protective of his wards. He made sure that you realised your share of the responsibility. If you had a doubt, or wanted to make a suggestion to improve the way things were done (and which young trainee doesn’t wish to change the world?) it was up to you to make a good convincing case.

First of all, the golden rule was: Always ask. Never take anything for granted. He had seen many a young manager, overawed by the well known and large organisation and its reputation, refuse to take up the challenge of finding out why something was being done the way it had always been. If there was a good reason, then learning that was vital to one’s development. If there was indeed a better way, then initiative lay squarely on your shoulders to engage others in a conversation. Assuming that there must be a good reason and being self-effacing was not a good sign! One wonders how many companies today sincerely believe this – that newcomers are an excellent source of new ideas, and therefore essential for self-renewal and for not falling into the trap of complacency that success and growth in size inevitably brings.

A further word of advice once you actually managed to make some change, or took a decision that would affect others: think who else needs to know, and keep them all posted, in the loop, as they say these days. I cannot but admire the senior manager who taught me this as a practical step to not only ensure the success of any move but also because it showed a practical application of yet another golden rule of effective leaders: Never sacrifice morale. According to this person who became one of the younger Chairmen of companies in India, and later sat on many corporate boards, it was far easier to do business more efficiently if the team morale was always kept in mind as high priority and kept alive (even if it be with embarrassing amount of hype and hoop-la) rather than deploy a colourless, dead-pan style of communication.

From him, too, I learnt the value of doing things right, because it is in his words, never worth sacrificing quality for quantity. Today, the Japanese approach of unremitting quest for quality in everything (TQM) endorses this. We learn from their methods of managing that it is important to wait till a consensus emerges, and it is always better to take a long time to plan and get a buy-in from all concerned and execute fast – rather than do the earlier phase too quickly. Speed is not always of the essence, certainly not where human responses to a major change are involved. Organisations by their very nature move slowly. They do not transform themselves overnight – with rare exceptions, usually of a commonly and instantly perceived danger or threat to survival. However this early mentor of mine had absorbed this principle obviously from his professional tutors, and believed in passing it on.

However, not all managers were (or indeed are) as perceptive and strong. Many are insecure deep down despite all their surface bluster. For them control is the first criterion for managing. They belong to a class who perhaps, in Douglas McGregor’s simplified division of managers, fall into the category who adopt the Theory X set of assumptions. One of them told me that the fundamental requisite of going up the ladder is: If you enter the commercial world you need a thick skin. Being too sensitive, which comes naturally to many, especially if they have been applauded and appreciated early on in life, is not help. Certainly the ability to compartmentalise one’s life and not carry the bruises of a rough day in office back to the home, is a good trick to learn. Whether one can change oneself sufficiently to develop a thick skin may be doubtful, but it is good to learn to stay in the present – like any good batsman or tennis player. There is no time to rue the near misses and near-disastrous mistakes because the next ball or the next serve awaits – only seconds away.

That indeed is a very good training and a far better way of putting it than asking people to become thick-skinned.

More Stories on : Human Resources | Management

Article E-Mail :: Comment :: Syndication :: Printer Friendly Page