PracticeLearning PGSEM MPPO

Indian Institute of Management

Walking the Talk

byAnuroop Vinayak Gaonkar

PGSEM, Batch of 2005, Sec ARoll No: 2005011

TowardsManaging People and Performance in Organizations

Taught by

R. Ravi Kumar Ph. D.

Professor, IIM - Bangalore

Index

The Choices – A Reasoning......................................................................5


Influencing self and others......................................................................6Influencing self and others in organizational context – The issues.......7Influencing self and others – Possible solutions............................................7

Managing collectivity related diversity.......................................8Managing collectivity related diversity – The issues...................................9Managing collectivity related diversity – Possible solutions...................10

Leading to leverage – Leading others to lead themselves.............................................................................................................11

Leading to Leverage – Leading others to lead themselves – The Issues...........................................................................................................................12Leading to Leverage – Leading others to lead themselves – Possible Solutions.....................................................................................................................13

Summary..................................................................................................................14

References.............................................................................................................15


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 managed ii.

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

can’t 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 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/her”iv.

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.

Figure 1. An Individual

The gap in clear understanding between the individuals and the world around

them makes process of influence a difficult task.

The awareness and practice of techniques of Influence in today’s

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


I

Values

Attitudes

Behaviors

individual to act and think in specific manner. If this understanding is lacking

the individuals can’t 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 individual’s 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

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 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 co-

operating 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 haven’t been overcome fully, the people may

also feel sidelined or left out in organizations where certain races or cultures

dominate if they don’t 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.

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.

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 video-

conferencing 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 don’t have the “right connections”

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.

i Effective Executive – Peter Druckerii Knowledge at Wharton article - http://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/article/1223.cfmiii Competing for the Future – C.K.Prahlad and Gary Hammeliv PGSEM Course Material for Managing People and Performance in Organizations - Dr. R. Ravi Kumarv Harvard Business Review on Managing People (Making Differences Matter: A New Paradigm for Managing Diversity by David A. Thomas and Robin J. Ley)


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 today’s 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 leader’s 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 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

leadership vi . 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

vi The cycle of leadership – Noel M. Tichy with Nancy Cardwell

Other references1. The Leadership Engine – Noel M. Tichy with Eli Cohen2. Harvard Business Review on Managing People (Assorted articles like Necessary art of Persuation by

Jay A. Conger)3. Execution – Larry Bossidy and Ram Charan4. Principle Centered Leadership – Stephen R. Covey5. Organizational Behavior – Robbins6. Inside Chinese Business – Ming Jer Chen7. Made in Japan – Biography of Akio Morita8. Straight from the Gut – Biography of jack Welch


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.

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 people’s 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

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 build on my strengths and at the same time influence the

corporate world around me positively through constant learning.

References


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