Indian Institute of Management

Walking the Talk

by PGSEM, Batch of 2005, Sec A Roll No: 2005011 Towards Managing People and Performance in Organizations Taught by
Anuroop Vinayak Gaonkar

R. Ravi Kumar

Ph. D.

Professor, IIM - Bangalore

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Index The Choices A Reasoning.....................................................................................................6

Copyright 2006 by Anuroop Vinayak Gaonkar. All Rights Reserved

Page 4 Influencing self and others.......................................................................................................7 Influencing self and others in organizational context The issues.....................................8 Influencing self and others Possible solutions .................................................................8 Managing collectivity related diversity.................................................................................10 Managing collectivity related diversity The issues........................................................10 Managing collectivity related diversity Possible solutions ...........................................11 Leading to leverage Leading others to lead themselves.....................................................13 Leading to Leverage Leading others to lead themselves The Issues..........................14 Other references.................................................................................................................18 Leading to Leverage Leading others to lead themselves Possible Solutions ............15 Summary.................................................................................................................................16 References..............................................................................................................................17

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The Choices A Reasoning

As it is said there is a method in every madness, - and madness is what the current endeavor seems like (unless we understand the benevolent motive behind) given the challenging goal. Hence the method that I adopted in choosing the areas of focus for this seemingly maddening task of creating a plan for putting in to practice the knowledge gained through MPPO course is based on 1. the importance of these themes/issues in my current as well as future professional life 2. my perception of the relevance of these focus areas to the way work is going to evolve in future 3. the interdependence /coherence among these focus areas/issues 4. the contribution this plan could provide to help me build on my strengths and neutralize my weaknesses I applied coherence and contribution criteria also, because, to achieve the best result the focus should be high and we need to play to our strengths. Eminent management thinker like Drucker has clearly emphasized the task of building on strengthsi. Even in recent studies published in Wharton business school knowledge portal it has been shown that the effective people managers are those who built on the strengths of the people they managedii. The theory of core competence proposed by Prahlad and Hammel also emphasizes the sameiii. I by tackling inter related issues that can build on my strengths shall be able to create a more cohesive plan for the transformation of the self, and the other individuals and hopefully the organization by influencing changes in processes and structures. The key issues that I am going to explore are 1. Influencing self and others 2. Managing collectivity related diversity 3. Leading to Leverage: Leading others to lead themselves The above three issues are highly inter-related. Leadership is about making the individuals to think or/and act in a specific desired manner. The leader cant be effective in this endeavor without the knowledge of diversity of motivations and the needs of different individuals and the skills needed to manage the self
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and influence the other. Apart from these as a foundation necessary to analyze and understand these issues in more knowledgeable and comprehensive manner I have tried to gain insight in to the issues involved in understanding the motivations and behaviors of the self as well as of the other individuals.

Influencing self and others

Influencing as aptly defined by Dr. Ravi Kumar is the act of making the other person behave in a specific way in which he/she would not have behaved and also make other person realize that the new behavior is emerging out of his/her own volition and not because of any compulsion imposed on him/heriv. Each individual tries to influence the world around him/her to achieve what that individual desires, whether it is a politician campaigning for votes or a lover trying to proposition for marriage or a child crying to be fed my its mother or a subordinate asking superior a raise in the salary. In each of these contexts the sources of influential power are different it may be leader and follower, superior and subordinate, or provider and dependent etc. relationships. To use influence effectively the way individuals exist and function should be understood. The individual as others perceive is a set of behaviors and attitudes. For the individual he/she sees himself/herself is though the concept of self or I and the set of values that drive them.

Behaviors Attitudes Values I

Figure 1. An Individual The gap in clear understanding between the individuals and the world around them makes process of influence a difficult task.
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The awareness and practice of techniques of Influence in todays

organizational life are of critical importance because we are moving towards more interdependent work culture, where the members of a group/team come from diverse cultures the traditional superior subordinate relationships are vanishing. In the age of knowledge workers the coercive power is disappearing. Hence the way forward for one is to understand the techniques of influence if he/she wants to achieve desired results.

Influencing self and others in organizational context The issues

Who am I, if this question were to be answered without ambiguity by each individual then that understanding would clearly specify what drives the individual to act and think in specific manner. If this understanding is lacking the individuals cant choose the most effective method that influences their decisions. Other than the lack of understanding of the self, the lack of attention paid to the actions performed and the thought processes by the self meaning lack of introspection creates a biased view of the self. It is more oriented towards what I want to be rather than what I am. This causes the others to perceive the individual differently than that individuals image about the self. This leads choice of non-optimal techniques for influencing when the people come together in organizational contexts. In organizational contexts there might be a need to exercise influence in situations even when any of the relationships is absent. Apart from this, the perceptions regarding the influential behavior itself may differ across cultural boundaries. For example the extraverted American culture may seem aggressive if they tried to do too much of hey buddy this is great, can you do a bit more in more introverted eastern cultures. Similarly the thin line between assertiveness and aggressiveness becomes even thinner with the dash of different cultures.

Influencing self and others Possible solutions

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The key to influencing is the understanding of the self as well as the others. In the scenario where there is no specific relationship, the person who wants to influence has to make himself relevant to the context and to the individual/group on whom/which he wants to have the influence by building a shared need. The first step in increasing my understanding is to understand how others perceive me. I can do this with tools like 360 degree survey or personal one to one meetings. Apart from that I also would seek to understand from the individuals with whom I interact, the drive that influences them in their behavior rather than focusing on the behavior itself. I would also strive to understand the attitudes and concept of their self. In this way I can gain more insight in to their psyche and will be able to respond better in situations involving interactions with these individuals. From the other individuals I expect the same kind of curiosity to understand. Other possible change that I look forward to in other individual is them becoming people with knowledge of various subjects which, I hope will build in them a more tolerant view of the world rather than I, me, myself view. The procedural changes that I would bring in my daily routine is to start writing a diary more regularly so that I can introspect more. I would also want to read at least one book in two months on a different culture seeking to understand the others better. In Macro organizational level, I would bring in changes to a. enable people to understand themselves better through personality tests like MBTI, Kiersey b. understand each other better through techniques like Johari Window c. increase the number of trainings that build cross cultural awareness I would request a repository of earlier such sessions so that new member can easily gather data about the existing members. Since the work is becoming a more team-oriented task, I would eliminate roles that are pure informational relays, as these tend to add complexity to communication in the team without addition of much value. Along with this I would start tuning my performance
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and reward systems to take in to account the efficiency of performance of individuals along with the effectiveness with the assumption that individuals who are effective interpersonally are more efficient in team oriented tasks. These changes would help us tune ourselves in to the organization of the future where there are mostly knowledge workers co-operating with one another to achieve a shared goal.

Managing collectivity related diversity

The new global businesses spanning national boundaries with the help of technology have for the first time put together peoples of different cultures, nationalities and races to achieve common goals defined by the organizations they work for. If one considers the history as recent as 60 years one will be amazed how these peoples who once waged war against one another are cooperating with one another. The above change from one extreme to the other has created new issues and the modern day organizations grapple with these issues each day.

Managing collectivity related diversity The issues

The diversity in the way people think, do work, communicate, perceive and react is essentially rooted in the different cultures people come from. The diversity also arises because of gender, race, country or religion. The people are torn between the needs of maintaining their unique cultural, gender, racial, national & religious identities and at the same time trying to belong to an alien work environment created by transnational organizations where none of these is recognized. As the prejudice of the yore havent been overcome fully, the people may also feel sidelined or left out in organizations where certain races or cultures dominate if they dont belong to that dominant group. There are also preconceived notions about peoples of different nations which however true make one blind to changed realities. These varied perceptions regarding the reality lead to gap in understanding communications, expectations. These result in conflict and make performance deteriorate.
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The process of building a common understanding in teams with higher degree of diversity takes more time than the team that has more uniform constitution. This has been my personal experience and it has been also proved by studies in managing virtual teams. That also brings us to another nature of such teams that is the members of these teams are located in geographically distant locations and sometimes for them only way to identify one another is the voice of the team member. The most important non verbal communication is lost. The people who use different native languages have to communicate in a common language like English that reduces their expressive power and sometimes causes confusion. The people from different cultures lay emphasis on different aspects associated with work. If it were an American, then it is all about getting the things done. If it were a European, then perfection and quality of life take precedence over the finishing of the job. If you see Indian context it is about fulfilling social obligations through work without much regard to the professional behavior. The organizations are becoming aware of these and trying to put in organizational cultures which provide people working in these organizations a set of values, expected set of behaviors and ways to demonstrate those behaviors in work. This set of procedures even though try assimilating diverse workforce in to the organization, it looses out on the advantage that this diversity can bring through its different perceptions and ways of workingv.

Managing collectivity related diversity Possible solutions

As in the case of solving any problem the first step is to recognize the problem exists and define the existing problem clearly. As in the case of Influencing Self and Others the key aspect of managing collectivity related to diversity, is to strive for building the greater understanding among the team members.

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The organizations have been on the right path in trying to bring in their own culture where the people can get some pointers on what is the value system, how can they align themselves with this value system and work for the organizational benefit. The problem that organizations have failed to address is increasing the awareness in its workforce about the diverse cultures and peoples who are part of the organization. Hence I would given a change make changes in organizational processes that teach us about the organizational value system to incorporate in them a awareness building module that enhances the sensitivity of individuals to different cultures that are part of the team. To reduce the barriers in communication and limitations imposed by the language, I shall use technology as aid and make better use of videoconferencing facilities on more regular basis. If people find it hard to express their ideas verbally, I would switch to written mode, where because of asynchronous nature it may become easier for people to express. In order not to loose out on the uniqueness of the knowledge and skills of these diverse cultures I would encourage each to become better listener and understand the why certain things are important and work the way they do. The biggest problem in such situations is some people feeling marginalized to avoid this I would adhere stringently to organizational expectations in setting performance expectations and rewarding the demonstrated behaviors. This would establish a level playing ground and create a standard scale for everybody to measure himself or herself against. To overcome who you know than what you know bias I would change the way the HR organization operates. I would encourage them to change the systems to track competencies of people and do the job matching and then do the recommending instead of applicants applying for the jobs. Applicants should be able to keep their competency list updated. Then from the short listed candidates the person may be selected through interviews. This would avoid the bane of good candidates belonging to non-majority groups loosing out on opportunities for growth because they dont have the right connections
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Thus the issue of managing collectivity is the most critical that is being faced by the organizations of today because the external reality has changed, but our organizations are operating under the assumptions that held them in good stead probably during pre knowledge work days.

Leading to leverage Leading others to lead themselves

Imagine an Indian soldier in the terrorist infested places like Kashmir. His duty is to protect the innocent and at the same time kill the terrorist. He needs to depend solely on his discretion with his knowledge to make the split second decision to pump in bullets in to a human being and if he is not prepared to make this decision he is dead. This does not mean he may shoot everybody in sight. It is on his performance the performance of the entire army depends. As it is the job of the leader to do the right thing the right way most of the times, he is also a leader. Similarly a corporate that operates within fast changing world filled with surprises, the situation is no different than the battlefield. The situation demands that each knowledge worker make decisions on his/her organizations behalf and translate these decisions in to action, which means he/she has to be a leader. Hence the topic of leading others to lead themselves is of critical importance in todays corporate milieu. It is of paramount importance for me too as I am also part of this changing landscape with duty to ensure that people I lead perform the best under every circumstance. The best example of this type of leadership is Krishna leading Arjuna in the Battlefield of Kurukshetra to understand the reality of life, birth, death and the supreme purpose of life. Krishna epitomized the teacher who tells his students there is everything to know about something in the most lucid way and then leaves the discretionary action of choosing the answer or the path to follow to his student. The essence of leadership revealed in this episode is that it is the leaders duty to help the people he/she leads find answers and convert delusion in to knowledge to accomplish the right goal the right way, and in the process convert the people being led to leaders. I shall use this as the
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benchmark when I further explore the issues and solutions in the following sections.

Leading to Leverage Leading others to lead themselves The Issues

The most important insight for the leader is to realize that it is his/her most important duty to teach to the people & prepare the people he/she leads to become leaders themselves setting in to motion the virtuous cycle of leadershipvi. It is also important to realize that my performance depends to the performance of the people who work for me. Once these are realized in any leadership assignment the biggest challenge is to build the mutual trust between the leader and the led. The lack of trust problems stem from the ego of the individuals that leader has to lead and the ego of the leader and also due to preconceived views that each person has about the other without any effort being made to understand each another. As we have seen in earlier section, it is a problem if the leader does not possess the requisite influence on the group. The newer reality is that leader does not know everything about the professional work of the people he/she is leading. This creates a kind of awkward situation for the leader, as he has to operate with less than 100% visibility and rely on more than the actual work related signals to interpret what is happening. The above point also brings us to the associated issue of leaders incapable of listening to the people they lead. Unless leaders actively listen happens they will alienate all the people and lead the organization to extinction rather than to growth and glory. The leaders can not provide a mere lip service by saying that they firmly believe in the ability of the people they lead, they have to believe it and make sure that they work to realize the potential of their employees. Leader should also be capable of connecting with the people in the field of action to garner best practices and spread them fast in to the remaining organization. He/she should be ever vigilant and lead by example.
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The pace of change has become so unsettling and it does not allow leaders to engage in slower understand the theory and then apply type of teaching. The people they have to teach are spread all over the world. These people come from different cultures; their needs and motivations are different. They react differently and they work differently. Apart from these there are people who do not have the necessary confidence to make decisions and live with the consequence of those decisions. They will go from pillar to post asking for decisions, which they should have made, and destroy peoples time and delay the organizational processes. The associated problem is that these kinds of people do not stop at one person to ask for guidance, instead go to hundred and in the end have no conclusive action plan to justify all the time that these people spent.

Leading to Leverage Leading others to lead themselves Possible Solutions

As we have seen the essence of leadership is the ability to teach individuals to realize their self worth and leverage their ability to move everybody forward. We have also seen set of issues that manifest themselves when people try to lead to are being led. To establish mutual trust through better understanding of one another I would go back to the techniques employed in building a better rapport some of which are listed in influencing self and other others possible solutions. Beyond the understanding, to maintain and grow the trust I need to be truthful and sincere in dealing with individuals. I have to connect with these individuals at human level than merely at professional level. As a process change for this purpose I plan to have lunch with a different individual each day, rather than go out with the same group. In this manner I shall be able to discuss something other than work. As the mutual faith has been established I shall move forward simultaneously with 2 different plans. The first plan will be focused on discussing with entire
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group the process of leadership, as group understands and aspirations of group members. Before the discussion I would urge them to read and understand the leadership style, successes and shortcomings of a leader that they consider as their idol. This would provide me insights in to what is ideal, what is liked and what is despised. I shall also discuss what I consider the general principles of leadership and the leadership experience that I have. In this mutual exchange of ideas I hope to build a common understanding that will help us establish the framework of leadership that we expect. Once the expectations are clear, I am going to create a plan for each individual in consultation with that individual. The plan will include project for each of these individuals to work on and will be aligned to the day-to-day tasks these individuals are expected to perform. I shall also ensure regular touch points with these individuals to assess the progress in implementation of the plan as well as the project. Once these individuals have successfully graduated through these sessions, I shall request selected individuals only to engage themselves in similar teaching projects to ensure that the cycle continues. I am emphasizing selected individuals because all may not have evolved their leadership skills to necessary degree of sophistication. Since the organization that I work encourages this mentor type of roles, I believe no major change in structure is necessary.

Summary
The gist of what I have tried to do is to understand, contemplate, internalize and translate my understanding in to action plan. It has made me realize that there are several opportunities for me as an individual to improve, for example to become a better listener. I realize that even though leadership requires one to make decisions it does not mean just focus on decisions and execution and ignore to listen to divergent views. There are several opportunities for organizations to become better by communicating their value systems better and thus be able to manage collectivity related diversity and achieve better results. Thus this exercise has become the starting point of a long journey to
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build on my strengths and at the same time influence the corporate world around me positively through constant learning.

References

Copyright 2006 by Anuroop Vinayak Gaonkar. All Rights Reserved

Effective Executive Peter Drucker Knowledge at Wharton article - http://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/article/1223.cfm iii Competing for the Future C.K.Prahlad and Gary Hammel iv PGSEM Course Material for Managing People and Performance in Organizations - Dr. R. Ravi Kumar v Harvard Business Review on Managing People (Making Differences Matter: A New Paradigm for Managing Diversity by David A. Thomas and Robin J. Ley) vi The cycle of leadership Noel M. Tichy with Nancy Cardwell
ii

Other references
1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. The Leadership Engine Noel M. Tichy with Eli Cohen Harvard Business Review on Managing People (Assorted articles like Necessary art of Persuation by Jay A. Conger) Execution Larry Bossidy and Ram Charan Principle Centered Leadership Stephen R. Covey Organizational Behavior Robbins Inside Chinese Business Ming Jer Chen Made in Japan Biography of Akio Morita Straight from the Gut Biography of jack Welch