Lalit Modi may be innocent, and so could the women leaders of BJP

I don’t know how I should begin! It is because I cannot take a particular stand. If I defend BJP, it would be interpreted as me offending Congress, or AAP, or SP, or CPM, for instance. Therefore, I have decided to talk about what is happening in our country, being in the witness consciousness.

In the circus of the political world, what I sadly see is pelting stones. This act of throwing stones at others has been a common phenomenon, over the years. Of late, Lalit Modi, not in any political outfit though, is in the limelight for all the wrong reasons; somebody who is charismatic, who could bring people from across the world together, who was instrumental in changing the shape of cricket in India, who could make all the cricketers of the world play as a team to give the sport its due respect. He is in trouble, and so is the UK it seems, to have given him refuge! Let us not forget that it was the UK who gave refuge to poets and artists when their lives were at stake, Britain was the place where Karl Marx wrote Das Kapital. Britain, despite its fearsome history, has also tried to accommodate people who have opposite points of view; I beg your pardon, but I don’t see why Britain wouldn’t support Lalit Modi with his travel documents to help him prove his point. Have you forgotten all the good things he did? The man is in deep trouble now facing allegations which could be polarized! Won’t we give him a chance to prove his innocence? I know comparing Lalit Modi with writers and artists could be viewed as far-fetched by many, by even some of my writer-friends, but as an amateur writer myself, I am fully conscious of the comparison, and I salute Britain once again for giving refuge to this unlucky fugitive, who is yet to be proven guilty.

I am sad to see how the women leaders of the BJP had been silenced! Let me start with Pankaja Munde, a lady who lost her father in an accident and tried to rise to the occasion. She had accepted a tender from her father’s friend, a person whom she trusts, respects, and likes! What is the problem here I fail to understand, you have the right to work with a person you trust and like, don’t you? The whole world functions like this. In the corporate world too, clients come to us repetitively because they like to work with us. Would Arnab Goswami, Rajdeep Sardesai and Pronoy Roy like to work with each other! Jokes apart, has it been proved that the work was given to the person concerned without a tender?

Vasundhara Raje, the Chief Minister of Rajasthan has openly said he knew Lalit Modi. Is it not true that Lalit Modi’s life is at stake? If Lalit Modi is a fugitive, so is Salman Rushdie, and so was M.F Hussain. If you thought that fugitives are criminals, I would urge you to see the film The Fugitive!

Sushma Swaraj, a true spokesperson of India is now being questioned about trivial things. Our image of politicians is not correct; it needs a change, a shift. If I am a politician, does that mean my family would stop working, even if they are enterprising to have their own way of making it big, or bigger? What is so wrong in trying to get her nephew in a good college in the UK, he is a brilliant student for heaven's sake, what is so wrong my friends if her daughter and her husband are engaged in work, both of them being bright and intelligent in their own fields; how does this lead into corruption and all the charges against such a charismatic leader I fail to understand!

In the same way, if BJP is trying to defend one of their youngest lady members Smriti Irani saying that it could have been a typographical error, what is stopping us from proving that it’s really an error or a fake degree; all we need to do is to go the college, talk to the principal, look at the files. Are you trying to equate Smriti Irani with the person who has records of domestic violence besides the alleged faking degree? He should also be given a fair chance to prove about his degree, but would you like to have a leader whose wife has embarrassing things to say about him? Are you equating Smriti Irani with such a person? Are you really out of your mind!

I admire Manishankar Iyer, Chidambaram, Manmohan Singh in the same way I admire Arun Jaitley, Narendra Modi, Budhhadeb Bhattacharya, Mamta Banerjee and Arvind Kejriwal. Please understand that these are people who have the ability to do good for our country; a country with countless divides, pressing concerns and limitless possibilities, still unexplored! It is not easy to deal with Indian dynamics! I am surprised to see how juvenile our system has become that it is refusing to let people work! When Congress was in power, BJP and its allies would create issues at the drop of a hat, create ruckus in the Parliament; and now it is the same thing that’s playing its course. When will this stop is the point I am trying to make here! When will all the parties whom we elect from time to time show maturity of working together for a common cause, and give us some relief! If every party wants to do the best thing for our country, why is it not happening I wonder! Well, it is this act of throwing stones that blocks, isn't it?

BJP, upon coming to power, had made women more pronounced and visible. My question to all the Indians is to keep your eyes and ears open, take as much information as is required, and listen to all the women ministers sadly silenced, momentarily I presume, before taking any decision for or against them! I am sure they’ll get over this storm in the cup and give our country the place she deserves! Here's wishing them all the very best!

Lalit Modi! I am with you... if you are proven guilty, you will get your term, no doubt about it, but until the time you are proven guilty, 'climb every mountain and fall every stream' to prove your innocence to come back to India, and in order to do that, you have the right to influence as many people as you want. Like me, there would be many to welcome you back to India! I am a common man and I am with you.

However, as I said earlier, I respect Congress leaders too, I have my highest regard for Anna Hazare and Kiran Bedi. Stepping over the respective party feuds, I had at times imagined my country in witness consciousness; what if our politicians looked beyond their troubled histories, resolved their conflicts, at the micro and macro levels, I had imagined Sonia and Maneka, the two sisters-in-law working together, Rahul Gandhi, Varun Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi, the three, who had the same misfortune of losing their fathers to resolve their issues and work together, where AAP, Congress, BJP, CPM and Trinamool and all other leaders would work on a common mission, with a common goal; our country, India.

9 ways of saving food at our workplace

The objective of this article is to show how well-researched food mapping can lead organizations to connect effectively with their respective workforce and help reduce food wastage! And who knows, effective and customized food delivery could even help in increasing the most sought-after productivity, a pressing concern in most organizations! I must quickly add that this article is applicable more in the APAC region than in other parts of the world.

1.     Keep observing!

Have you noticed how people eat at their workplace! Your key to saving food can veritably come from an in-depth observation, without being judgemental, on how people eat, with their inclination to either juicy, or spicy, or fast food! While there are people who cannot eat beyond a quantity at a time, there are also these eaters who eat only once or twice. Those who eat many times say after every one or two hours are the ones who could be wasting food. What if organizations had an innovative way of dealing with this challenge! For instance, suggesting biscuits and other knickknacks in between major meals, and allowing them to have the quantity they’d not waste during their major meals? To do anything, meaningful food data is essential for organizations trying to reduce food wastage. Can information on food habits collected from the point of entry, with an effective questionnaire from the HR, help in controlling and mapping food data?

2.     Understanding the culture

i.                 Accessories

There are people who are not so comfortable with accessories, they do not know how to hold a fork and a knife and are seen embarrassed playing catch-catch with food! I understand that they need to be trained into 'dining etiquette', but while the training is on, can they also be given the comfort of eating with hands!

ii.               Type of food

When I asked a simple question on whether people enjoy home food or outside food, very few said outside food! In this context, may I suggest considering the possibilities of bringing home-food to the office! It is for those, especially the ones who stay alone or are nuclear with both the spouses working, who cannot cook their lunches on a regular basis. For a Keralite, kanhi could be so satisfying, as for a north-Indian a simple dal chawal. I know some courses could be very difficult to be given their due place in the office menu, but for the ones possible, why not let people eat the way they like, even if it looked clumsy; after all, every day you are not eating with clients.

iii.            Can food help in increasing productivity?

I met a friend from the Ivory Coast, with whom I worked only for 25 days. I was troubled to see him not eating at all. I asked him what the problem was, and here’s what he had to say; I don’t eat because I am health conscious, so I eat less. However, the truth was revealed when, on a Saturday, I went with him to Phoenix Market city in Guindy! We ordered chicken roast and a whole lot of food you can imagine. I found him eating to his heart’s content, shamelessly from my plate too, and the smile and enthusiasm I saw on his face were priceless. But that is not the point here, what he said after he ate is! He said, Supratik, you know, I can work for 19 hours non-stop after this meal! Seeing him replete and content, my greedy mind thought of food as an in-road to productivity! Two important things here; one is he had no reason to talk about work then, but he did, why, and two, he was not talking about himself at that very moment; he was representing or voicing a large section of the working population!

3.     The mom/lady factor

About seven days later, my friend from the Ivory Coast surprised me even more! He said, Supratik, you know why I liked the food so much the other day? It’s because the food reminded me of my mom, it was so close!

A fool that I was, all this while I thought he enjoyed outside food! It’s amazing to know how food could make a person from West Africa feel at home in a food joint in Chennai! In fact, this is true for most of us; think of the food you like the most, and in your brain, you are bound to have the physical imprint of your mom and the food; just do this exercise right now, close your eyes and think of the food you like the most! If you did that sincerely, you could even feel the saliva leaking from your tongue. So powerful is the ‘connect’ that everybody, without exception, either thinks of their mother, or their spouse, or a special lady with that special dish. I am sorry to be sounding sexist; ladies have a very special place for generations in everyone’s heart because of this quality, some guys are trying to catch up, but guys you have a way to go! The point I am trying to make here is to try and see if we could bring moms or those special ladies into the office kitchen, the quality of the cooking may not be the same, but it could certainly be close, isn’t it?

4.     Bringing home-food in offices

Having said that organizations can really come up with innovative ideas of bringing home-food to the office; there are people from the north-east who prefer boiled rice with dollops of butter and one simple boiled egg; people from the south who prefer plantain, tamarind rice, and those from the north prefer sagwala meat, paneer just the way they’d have at home, and there are these people who connect more with outside food. Some Indians, at times, prefer poha on plane cold water with lime and sugar, some prefer simple puffed rice with mustard oil and green chilies. I understand that it may not be possible to accommodate the rich variety of Indian food in offices, but much can be done despite limitations and constraints; they are more of alterable than constraints strictly speaking!

Therefore, understanding the culture is as sacrosanct as understanding the laws of the land.

5.     Emulating inclusiveness at the dining table

There was this organization where we used to play a very interesting game as part of Induction; it was called the dish game I vaguely remember. An effective ice-breaker, the game would start from one person who would first say his/her name and then the dish s/he preferred. This is a rich source of information in finding the road-map to saving food because here’s where the workforce is speaking their heart out! However, the point I am making here is not this, but a much larger issue that can emulate inclusiveness in the proper sense of the term. There was this guy who said his preferred dish was mutton during the game, but came up to me at the end of the session and told me that his preferred dish wasn’t mutton, but it was beef; he also told me how scared he was telling in public about his preferred dish his mom makes best in the world. Later, I remember going to the restroom and silently praying that I want to live in a country where people can talk fearlessly about what they like to eat, without feeling guilty. However, expecting this from a country like India is not easy; but can we expect this from organizations that have inclusiveness as their 'raison d’être'? When would the time come in organizations when their workforce could be seen eating different types of food at the same table, instead of Brahmanas teaming up and eating together talking openly on how they hate non-vegetarian food, perhaps even the eaters too, right in the middle of organizations desperately trying to promote inclusiveness?

6.     The thought that wasting food is a crime may not help

Interestingly, in many cultures across the world, wasting food is seen as a mark of opulence, that if you wasted food and threw them away, cats, dogs, and crows will eat and survive; in turn, they will bless you to become richer. Typically, people belonging to this faith unconsciously put the food in the litter as a metaphor to those animals; something they have learned for generations. Even if you looked at Europe, tomatoes can also be seen as wasted in the famous festival La Tomatina, and there is also much of wastage in the Oktoberfest! To cope with these disobedient challenges, the tact would be to create an atmosphere where the workforce collectively learns how not to waste, and in case of waste, how to channel that wasted food appropriately! Criminalizing wasting food may not help in the long run. All in all, we need to be patient, not restless, determined, and not desperate.

7.     An effective mantra (slogan) could help

Get an effective mantra for your workforce, or for the team which is committed to saving food. I could think of one; “Our employees are all well-meaning and they do not waste food”; feed this into your thought even if you see them wasting food right in front of your eyes! The more you think your employees are indifferent, the more it will come true. Likewise, if you churn an energizing mantra, it could also work. I am not a competent person to tell you how it works, but it works flawlessly in every situation, of course in time!

8.     Taking the credit

A vice, a virus that is rampant everywhere, in all walks of life, in the littlest thing we do, not do! One can easily understand how it jeopardizes all meaningful efforts with one or two examples.

Imagine a huddle happening in your organization about saving food. Your senior manager has proposed something; everybody will say, hey this is the best, we will do it! When the results would fail you, you'd say saving food is not possible and give it up! But if you probe, do an RCA, you could find, as it were, that your desperate attempt in trying to grab the credit with a 'win-lose' approach actually stood on the way. Your results would either show that saving food is not possible or it could even be worse, your papers will show you have succeeded, but the litters won't.

9.     With patience and teamwork, ways are bound to show up

Food is the first love, 'papi pet ka sawal' are sayings which are as old as time! Count on them, work on them, and you will find your ways, if not in six months, but with multiple, meaningful and probing trials with patience and teamwork in several sets of semesters, you will definitely find the way to put the first love in stomachs that are willing, wanting and waiting to eat.

Bon appétit!

Image credit: http://www.tribuneindia.com/2011/20110703/ttlife.htm

Wasting food is also snatching food

This article is an extension of the previous one ‘Food for thought: 11 steps to stop wastage of food at our workplaces’ which highlights the unpredictable nature of wasting food; it can vary due to a number of reasons. That’s what makes it challenging and hence engaging. This article is to understand the reasons why people end up wasting food.

Make saving food your fetish

It needs a substantial amount of study to understand why and how people waste food. You could be deluded if you thought of following a standard and approved method and applying it everywhere; food is wasted for a number of reasons. Observe the pattern based on the following variables in your respective facilities.

Days

Observe the pattern of waste on Fridays and Mondays. When your employees are rushing home, or busy meeting friends for their Friday parties, the pattern can be different than on Mondays, when they come back to work.

Nature of work

Wastage might also depend on the nature of work. Employees who work in shifts might throw a different pattern than those who work on normal shifts. People who work in BPOs, or hospitals might have a different pattern. Unless you observe the pattern, you cannot chalk out the problem map more accurately.

Position of the facility

Similarly the geographical positioning of your facility may give different patterns, e.g. office located on the outskirts as opposed to those located at the heart of the city.

Weather

During change of seasons, when there is imbalance (dosha) in wind or air (vayu), bile or fire (pitta) and water or phlegm (kapha), nature of wastage can be different. So the strategy has to be different then.

When the weather of the office is heavy!

Even after having two strudels, when Max wanted to have one more with the excuse of‘making 'it an uneven three’ do you remember what Captain von Trapp told him in the famous film The Sound of Music (1965)? ‘Still eating, Max? Must be unhappy.’

People normally eat more, waste more when the stress level is high, therefore, during periods of appraisals, the pattern could be different. What I am trying to say here is that there cannot always be a fixed method for preventing wastage of food.

What may not work

Do not make your employees’ lives miserable because you are on a mission

This is very important. The reason is very simple. While the belief ‘food is the first love’ is true, it is also true that people eat to distress. Your employees are stressed because of a number of reasons, so please don’t make their lives miserable when they are eating.

Outsourcing

Outsourcing may not work; the treasure team is there in your organisation: no one knows your organisation, or your facility the way you do. So find the team from within your organisation or facility. Be alert and keep on observing till you crack. Remember the ways are just hiding somewhere; they are just some efforts away. There is no standard method for saving food. You try and apply a recommended method which is successful in some country or in some organisation, the results might fail you! However, if it works, then there's nothing like it, please go ahead and follow! Remember, every organisation has its culture, its own characteristics, and therefore, its own pattern of wasting food, and within the same organisation, different facilities could show different patterns of waste.

What may work

Sit with the employees to find out the number and gaps. If you really make saving food your fetish, go talk to your employees, try and get the numbers, e.g. how many prefer dal, chawal, sabji, how many want burgers, and so on. With a finite number of footfalls and menu, this may not be difficult. Give them what they want, and if required change your menu. This could also help.

Here are some cost-effective suggestions

Choose one day in a month when you could observe no food wastage day. On that day, ask everyone who has lunch from the canteen to bring an empty lunch box or any packet where they can carry their excess food. This is to ensure that you go light on the litters on that day. If this doesn’t work, keep trying. But when it does, don’t forget to celebrate.

From the day it works, you could suggest this to the ones you know waste food. Here is what they can do with the excess food they carry home. They can

·         give it to persons who they know are starving in their respective localities

·         eat it for later, it’s just like you do with excess food you bring from the restaurants

 Introduce foodie buddy

Suggest people who love to eat to sit with those who waste food. The foodies would love to have that extra chapatti, or that extra bite from their friends’ plate!

I am sure most of you would have already done this. Try newer ways; please do not give up this noble cause and this pressing need. Problem of recycling can be solved if the effort to save food becomes inclusive.

Keep on trying my friends, because wasting food is also snatching food. Never be fed up, you will find your ways for sure!

Image credit: magnonsmeanderings.blogspot.com
©Supratik Sen

11 steps to stop wastage of food at our workplaces

Food for thought

Without even getting into numbers and statistics, one can figure out the huge amounts of food that go wasted every day at our respective workplaces. I had been thinking of sharing ways to prevent wastage of food. I finally decided to share upon seeing a message on LinkedIn which went somewhat like this: Don’t waste food, I can afford it, you can afford it, but the nation can’t afford it. It’s a very powerful message indeed.

Come let’s find out ways in which we can prevent wastage of food! It is an engaging work indeed! Please understand that these eleven steps are more relevant in the APAC region, where people’s index on collectivism is higher than individualism [Individualism (IDV) vs. Collectivism]*.  

1. Do not blame the employees. In fact, do not blame anyone, it doesn’t help. If I am blaming my employees who waste food on a regular basis, it only means I am accepting this as a phenomenon. Your employees are sweet and harmless; however, they are unconscious. The strategy would be to make them conscious. 
2. If you are really serious to put this behind you, first make a list of people who waste out of habit and those who waste because of the system! System? Yes. Your vendors give a specific amount of veg/egg noodles for Rs.25. If I am not able to eat the whole amount, there will be a wastage of food for sure. Similarly, for chapatti thali, allow people to choose the number of chapattis they want to have; those who cannot have four chapattis invariably waste.  
3. Form a team which is engaged in finding out from which career level, foods are getting wasted the most, the results could be interesting, and organize intermittent training on the importance of saving food. If required, build this into your induction module.
4. Introduce a buffet instead of a banquet, if possible. 
5. Encourage employees to use condiments and tissue papers diligently. 
6. Develop a packaging system that allows the wasted food (not rotten) to be channeled to those who starve for a whole square meal. Don’t think twice as to how you can give somebody’s wasted food to someone else, that you are abusing poverty....no, you are not because food is food, and if those eager mouths get healthy food from you on a regular basis, what more can you ask for! 
7. Please do not penalize anyone for wasting food... this is ineffective and generates negative feeling and eventually leads onto a lose-lose scenario. 
8. Introduce black tea/coffee with separate sugar and milk. Diabetic patients are obliged to take tea/coffee with milk and sugar because, in most offices, beverages are not served separately, and most of them, take just a sip or two and throw the rest of it in the nearest litter. You can’t blame them, can you because their malady doesn’t allow them to have the full cup, but they do so because all they want is a sip. So please train the vendors to check on the quantity required. This can also happen for people without sugar; introduce half-cup tea or coffee. 
9. Train the vendors and the employees separately and note down their concerns. Please note down their concerns because you are determined to save food, so it is your business to have all kinds of information concerning food and its wastage. 
10. Allow employees to share one meal. This can be really handy... I have seen vendors not allowing people to share one meal because of obvious reasons. 
11. There could be some who waste food simply because they don’t like the taste. Educate the vendors to accommodate people’s tastes, those who like spicy food and those who do not. In Hyderabad, I had difficulties in requesting the vendors not to put red chilly in omelets, and whenever they did I had to gulp it down with regrets. The onus is on both sides, please educate the vendors to ask simple questions like ‘with or without red chilly’. There needs to be a repository of questions that need to be asked to employees who come to eat.

It is a fascinating and challenging process to save food and your only incentive is that you are saving your nation from wasting food every day! However, this needs research and an engaging team committed to innovating newer and doable ways to not let foods go down the drain.

These eleven steps are not sacrosanct, I am sure you and your research team can find out better and more innovative ways to do something our nation can ill afford. The sole objective of this article is to say that a) it is possible to let the litters go light and b) blaming your employees will not help. Train all the stakeholders to go up the ladder, from unconscious incompetence to unconscious competence, and in this effort, never give up, never be fed up!

All the best!

Note *Individualism (IDV) vs. collectivism: "The degree to which individuals are integrated into groups". In individualistic societies, stress is put on personal achievements and individual rights. People are expected to stand up for themselves and their immediate family and to choose their own affiliations. In contrast, in collectivist societies, individuals act predominantly as members of a lifelong and cohesive group or organization (note: "The word collectivism in this sense has no political meaning: it refers to the group, not to the state"). People have large extended families, which are used as a protection in exchange for unquestioning loyalty. [Source: Geert Hofstede’s Cultures and Organizations: Software of the Mind]

Image credit: 

Data: Global Food Losses and Food Waste, FAO 2011 | bit.ly/gflfw Graphic @lulupinney#graphicswithacause

P.S

The reason I say research is important is because of inputs that you will get about wastage of food. In many offices, I have seen that genuine wastes get merged with recyclable waste.

We have wasted (this much) food today is good, but it doesn’t quantify the waste. Innovate a method which enables you to say, we have wasted 32 chapattis, 2.5 kilos of rice, 13 boiled eggs, 9 pieces of chicken...and so on. Where is the team which can do that? This might ring a bell somewhere, those foods could have gone to stomachs that are starving?

I have also seen people wasting chapattis because of their size. In some offices, the size is too big. There are people who systematically take one or two bites and then throw them away. In some offices, the type of chapattis is the reason; they are not soft. That’s why research is needed.

To cope with this, two/three types of sizes can be introduced with interesting names, viz. cute chapatti, jumbo chapatti, mumbo chapatti.. or soft chapatti, super-soft chapatti; who knows, this can help in avoiding wastage.

Whatever you do, be prepared to fail...this is very important. Every day try new ways, and every day you might see the litters are failing you..don’t give up...please..because you are on a mission here...you are not just satisfied with the salary you get at the end of every month, but you are working for a much larger cause... surely you will one day find your feather-light litters dancing in ecstasy, and the nation (world) replete and smiling. Remember wasting food is in a way snatching food...don’t let this happen..so pull in your socks and get, set and go!

©Supratik Sen

MNCs might have a bigger role to play

MNCs might have a bigger role to play

At the outset, I must express my gratitude towards big multinational companies for their outstanding achievements in developing communities across the world. It is heartening to observe how such organizations have contributed to the growth and development of the entire communities where they have made their presence. The objective of this article is not to show who has contributed the most, but to bring to light how much more they can do, with a little shift in their mindset. The purchasing power of ordinary mortals like us who work in MNCs increases dramatically, most of the workforces get easy loans to buy flats, lands, cars, go to places for fun and entertainment. No one can doubt these companies’ sincerity towards quality and commitment to their clients, their foolproof processes for ethics and compliances to confidentiality for safeguarding their clients’ interests. Most MNCs who have gone public are also committed to their shareholders, and have shown remarkable results in making everyone happy; fiscally, materially.

The index of happiness

However, it is time to take look at the happiness index of their respective employees; more than being happy materially, do they have peace? Is there a scale to measure the happiness index? Is it considered important to have such a measure? In most organizations, where the ecosystem is far too regimental employees do not have peace of mind. Do these organizations have peace as their priority? Talking about peace sounds so silly and out of place that I found myself changing the topic and writing about something else; until now. Much to my disappointment, I found that the happiness index of the employees, despite growth and development and increased purchasing power, is getting thinner and thinner every day. Is it worth the time and effort to look at the symptoms, if any, that is causing distress and malaise in society?

The enemy is out there

The world outside has become far too fragile and sensitive; it is an unsteady world, where innocents are killed like rats on the streets. Society is plagued with animosity and hatred. Then how does it justify inculcating or promoting stress and competition as raw materials for growth? Many social behaviorists and spiritual organizations say that if we have to walk past war, and if we have to send those mindless weapons and arms onto museums with a ‘do not touch’ tag, we need to kill wars from within us. And here, I with my years of experience in the corporate, with my limited visibility though, find that all our models of performance and deliveries are based on the model of war, we do think that stress and competition are good, and we need to be at war in every moment of our active working lives. If we have so much of war amongst us, then can we blame the wars that we see outside? Even the simplest of events in offices has an element of competition, e.g. singing, skit, jam (just-a-minute) would be entertaining if somebody wins at the cost of many losing...why so! Why can’t we just have those events and try to perform our best! Why should there always be the-enemy-is-out-there syndrome?

The way we think needs to change

We are born in wars; we live and die in wars. It is not surprising therefore that anywhere there are events with words like 'enemy' 'competition', war, 'fight', then such events get the credibility and instant approval from us. We might suffer because of our dead beliefs, but we don’t realize that the germ is in the way we think, and the remedy to it, if at all, would have to come from the way we think.

The belief that ‘good is the enemy of great’

Of all the things James C Collins has said in his book Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap... and Others Don't, we seem to have taken and accepted 'good is the enemy of great' alone? Good is the place where God resides, and it cannot be anyone’s enemy. James Collins has also said, “When [what you are deeply passionate about, what you can be best in the world at and what drives your economic engine] come together, not only does your work move toward greatness but so does your life. For, in the end, it is impossible to have a great life unless it is a meaningful life. And it is very difficult to have a meaningful life without meaningful work. Perhaps, then, you might gain that rare tranquillity that comes from knowing that you’ve had a hand in creating something of intrinsic excellence that makes a contribution. Indeed, you might even gain that deepest of all satisfactions: knowing that your short time here on this earth has been well spent and that it mattered.” Please understand that training your workforce into performing their best is what is important, and in that event, if your performance is good, it’s okay. Processes within the organization need to foster a passion for work, create that atmosphere where productivity becomes a given.

About work

Interestingly, I have asked various team members across levels on what they think about work. All of them said they loved their work; here are some of the responses

1.    I love to make calls and talk to people about...

2.    I love to write codes, it is fascinating...

3.    I am passionate about training...

4.    Oh, clearing challans is so fascinating; I don’t know what I am going to do if I were to be promoted...

5.    I love to work in sales, every day you meet new people, and the incentives are too interesting...

6.    My work is very challenging, being an SA (solution architect), I get to convert the requirements into an architecture and design, it’s a rewarding experience when it gets accepted as a blueprint I feel lucky...

7.    Oh, I love my work as a cashier, every time I am with money, I love it...I know it is sometimes risky, but I feel great when the cash tallies at the end of my work...

8.    Trouver le mot juste, c’est fascinant!! In translation, searching for the right word is fascinating!!

About going to work

However, more than 90% said going to work was stressful! While it is good to know that people do not dislike what they do, contrary to popular belief, it is not so good to know that most do not like to go to work; they look for the holiday list and long weekends in the first week of every year. Of course, it depends on how you sit and frame your questions so the actual feeling surfaces if questions are not framed right, it would appear that the majority don’t like to work; no, they like their work to the point of identifying themselves with them, but they do not want to go to work. It’s strange, isn’t it? Where is the gap? They were not able to identify the reason; so here is my view.

Self-defeating processes

Going to work is stressful because of the modus operandi, because of stress and competition that make the air heavy to breathe, because of mistrust and backstabbing that dominates the work environment, because of being/not being able to align with the processes, getting into the good books of supervisors, in the absence of which work will stop flowing into your kitty! Organizations have learned to compete with their competitors inside out. Sometimes, the competition faced from within the same organization is much worse and crass than the competition faced from outside, there is enough evidence in the past when two departments of the same organization submitted tenders for grabbing the same job. Therefore, it is quite natural to displace the tension to all the stakeholders. It is difficult to change this mindset; yet, it is important to change it! The processes encouraged within are counter-productive, not cost-effective, and therefore, self-defeating.

The bigger role is in the bigger picture

Learning organizations are expected to have a bigger picture. However, the bigger picture has always been to find out ways to sustain, survive and excel in the competitive market. Profit has been a major concern, and undeniably so. With profit, what if learning organizations also focused on peace? Working on a war footing is vitiating the atmosphere way too much, isn’t it? Of course, I know it is difficult, but can this be the priority? That is what I am trying to ask in this article. Can’t peace and profit coexist?

Give peace a chance

Can they deliver peace? If peace also becomes the priority of the learning organizations that have played major roles in growth and development, then this could be one of the most important CSR (Corporate Social Responsibility) activities they can ever deliver. If ‘charity begins at home’ is true, then this could be the greatest CSR activity that MNCs can even dream of, and yes, it will also score points in terms of blessings from their workforce. For this to happen, MNCs need to be convinced of its ROI. In my view, this could even stop the war we see out in the world. For this, the whole set of frozen beliefs needs to change.

©Supratik Sen

image credit: google images

#thoughtleadership #leadership #change #mindset #peace

Three aspects of organisational behaviour might need change

By definition, organisational behaviour is "the study of human behaviour in organizational settings, the interface between human behaviour and the organization, and the organization itself."

I have spent 27 years in the corporate, and my article here is based on my experiences, and in my own interest, on some genuine discussions I had had with some of my colleagues. At the outset, I must say that good and heart-warming experiences galore, and I was fortunate to have colleagues who were such good friends that even today when they call me, I feel an instant connect with them. They were the ones who had pushed me to take up things I never thought I could, because I was from a different background. In my effort to being a meaningful trainer, these friends went out of their ways to coach me into highly specialised subjects like Systems Thinking, Conflict Management; A gatecrasher that I was, I fondly recall that during my first session, some of them were outside the class just to come in for help if required; luckily, thanks to their indefatigable efforts, I did not disappoint them, but I would always keep this as my mark of respect to what organisations can do by cascading down the right culture of camaraderie and professionalism.

The three important aspects

1. Colleagues are not friends

Sad but true, and why so I wonder. Most of us are groomed into thinking that colleagues cannot be friends, and it is because of our thoughts, this becomes true. I have often wondered that how is it that all mothers are good, but all mothers-in-law are you-know-what! Even before meeting them, we have an opinion of them... can this be based on logic? This mindset needs to change. How can we see peace in this world if we do not have peace at our workplace? Peace, for quite selfish reasons has a less priority over growth. This is sad. The world outside, the real world, is full of insecurities; especially now, because we are not sure if from work we'd go home safe and sound. However, inside the organisation, we fight, constantly with a win-lose approach. Look at our appraisal model and you will understand what I mean. In my brief interaction for 25 days in an organisation, I met one person who would warn me to be careful because he thought there were enemies all around. Think! Is this person alone needs to be blamed? No. If we need to change this mindset, organisations need to come forth and develop a solid and in-depth mechanism to ensure we can also see a friend in our colleagues instead of only those team-outings and events. Colleagues are made to fight because organisations think they cannot control the workforce otherwise, and per the top notch executives all of this animosity needs to be alive to ensure growth. This logic is not sound enough because if growth were so important, Peter Senge wouldn’t alert us on the limits to growth. And who says growth cannot be achieved with friendship? If this is the organisation’s mindset, then it needs to change; otherwise, every day we’d need to go to work, and every day, we’d hate to go.

2. Competition means growth

 There’s another important aspect that the organisations need to focus on, competition! Throughout history, as old as time, if we have seen anything horrendous, it is competition! Competition fosters growth without understanding what true competition is, is a wrong mindset. According to the Brahmakumaris (BKs), Deepak Chopra, Wayne Dyer, human beings haven’t learnt to compete; the most fascinating competition – something that really fosters growth and spreads bonhomie, is competition with Self, with none else. Our entire model, from induction to promotion to attrition happens because of and despite competition. Please do not categorize me as oh he’s one of those followers of BKs or some such spiritual organisations and discard saying it is not applicable in the real world, it is very much applicable. If you have never tried anything, from the bottom of your heart, how can you say it is not...otherwise we wouldn’t have the digital world today! Organisations market competition as healthy, but according to many social behaviourists, healthy competition is an oxymoron. The expression cut-throat seems more appropriate.

 3. Peace, the poor cousin

 In our pursuit to achievement and growth, peace often takes a backseat. It wouldn’t be inappropriate to say that it is shelved as the poor cousin or even the black Peter. As part of OB, we need to factor in peace as an important aspect that can build relationship between people in an organisation as also between organisations. It is sad to see how organisations compete against each other and expect a peaceful world in which they inhabit. Our businesses would have a far more meaningful growth, if peace became our raison d’être! If profit and money were to be the only cornerstones for success, then there is little wonder to have surprises, sometimes from food products and sometimes from pharmaceutical products. It is this mindless and mechanically driven mindset of wanting more profit and more growth anyhow that put people’s lives at stake, killing people or back-stabbing them is fair because that's what we have learnt, and with 'enemies all around' peace indeed is that weak and the poor cousin!

 People’s person, caught in between the devil and the deep sea

On this, I have spoken at length to not less than 100 people across levels, and all of them, without exception, have told me how bitter their stress is and how insecure they feel because of competition. I guess they were voicing hundreds of them out there! Some of them have also used the word cul-de-sac to define this model which fosters animosity and mistrust among people. And yet we talk about being a people’s person! My sincere appeal to people who matter would be to understand, through meaningful huddles, as to how to bring about a model where individuals can be evaluated in a much more creative way, rather than the traditional win-lose approach. This is a creative, engaging and a daunting task indeed, which can only come about through conviction and meaningful discussions! Else we could just be happy with growth and unhappy with the lack of it, and in both, peace will escape for sure! In between competition and growth, with their respective price, good and bad, organisations and their workforce are perpetually in between the devil and the deep sea.

Notes and references:

1. Moorhead, G., & Griffin, R. W. (1995). Organizational behavior: Managing people and organizations (5th edition). Boston. Houghton Mifflin, (p.4)

2. Peter Michael Senge is an American systems scientist who is a senior lecturer at the MIT Sloan School of Management, co-faculty at the New England Complex Systems Institute, and the founder of the Society for Organizational Learning; author of The fifth discipline

 3. Brahmakumaris, a spiritual organisation

 4. Deepak Chopra is an Indian-born American author and public speaker. He is an alternative medicine advocate and a promoter of popular forms of spirituality

 5. Wayne Walter Dyer is an American self-help author and a motivational speaker; his first book Your Erroneous Zones is one of the best-selling books of all time

 Image credit: Google images