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
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