The Hindu Business Line : Perish the procedures that don't deliver

INDIAN bureaucrats, as a British playwright described, are "a bunch of bumbling nincompoops", notes the back cover of Ashwani Lohani's Winning at Work Against all Odds, from Wisdom Tree (www.wisdomtreeindia.com). The author, from the 1980 batch of Indian Railway Service of Mechanical Engineers, served as the CMD of ITDC (India Tourism Development Corporation). And the book is about his struggle against the system and the effectiveness of simple management mantras.

"In all mature organisations, leadership becomes a victim of designation," writes Subir Raha in his foreword to the book. "Men of straw sit on plush chairs, desperately insecure and annoyingly arrogant," he adds. To compound incompetence is corruption, not just the simple variety of indulging in bribe, but "compromising objectivity". In this country of more than a billion people, there are tens of thousands of heroes like Ashwani, unknown and unsung, notes Raha. "That's why India works. India can work much better... "

Deliverance is the critical issue, everything else is secondary, writes Lohani in the intro. "For nations that are still on the road and not yet developed, the foremost priority has to be deliverance. Systems, procedures and rules are meant to facilitate deliverance and if they cannot do so, they deserve to be abdicated," he prescribes.

Lohani narrates bizarre instances of how ego clashes overshadow important issues, and thwart "healthy exchanges of ideas and disagreements, that are so necessary for growth and development."

Bureaucrats often have ego issues with someone who is reporting to them, rather than with someone they are reporting to, rues Lohani. He recounts his `principled disagreement' with the Ministry of Disinvestment in 2002, which was "dead against the revival of properties of the ITDC."

The author's first love is railways, "the most visible symbol of dynamic delivery." Despite its very strong systems, Indian Railways has started showing signs of decay because of "an overbearing bureaucracy and lack of commercial sense," laments Lohani. He has interesting stories about the revival of the National Rail Museum and the setting of a Guinness record in 1998 by hauling the `Fairy Queen Express' with the oldest working steam locomotive in the world.

Lohani compares our productivity with that of other countries such as Germany, the UK and the US, and sums up, "There they are delivering, here we are busy." The sum total of the produce of a society is exactly equal to the sum total of what every single individual achieves, he dins in. "In government offices, cutting across sectors and ministries, we come across a sea of babus, immersed deep in files, busy discussing issues, planning overseas trips to study the wonderful systems of other countries, attending meetings and conferences, marking files up, down, right and left but deliverance is conspicuous by its absence."

Fast movement of files can have a dangerous side-effect: foisting of vigilance cases on the presumption of vested interest. Or, it is alleged that "the fellow is too ambitious — he craves for public recognition." If vigilance is not able to dampen enthusiasm, in comes the audit team. "Totally unconcerned about deliverance and far removed from ground realities, but having full faith in the dictum that hindsight is the exact science, the audit guys go through each and every file in a highly organised way to catch even minor and insignificant deviations from the established rules and procedures." How true! "Every single decision is questioned, every single action is challenged and the list of faults ultimately produced after a detailed audit is sufficient to make anyone go off his rocker. One keeps on answering the idiotic queries ad infinitum."

Lohani recounts scores of incidents to prove how you can make the system work. Read this snatch about the Ashok cafeteria in the airport `where even the lowliest of the staff was moving in his own car': "The standard practice was to buy stuff while coming for duty and sell the same from the cafeteria at the prescribed rates which are fairly high at international airports. The staff made hay while the Corporation bled." The trick to treble the turnover was just the replacement of chef and cashier!

According to the author, "Gossip during office hours and complaining about the system while at the same time contributing to its complexity is professional corruption." For success in office, we have to be passionately involved with our entire work, advises the author. "A person passionate about whatever he does will not age as fast as others." Interestingly, "even one passionate person in the organisation will send such strong positive vibes that it would be difficult for even the hardcore defeatist to prevent its proliferation at an extremely fast pace."

Lohani writes that `perform or perish' became the guru mantra for every single individual. "Let the milk of kindness flow, but remember, one can be kind to someone who has made mistakes, but not with someone who does a wrong intentionally with the object of harming someone else or his organisation for his own personal gains or pleasure."

Great read!

ManageMentor@TheHindu.co.in

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