How to create a great workplace

Building a great workplace is both a strategic decision and a moral one. But, a great workplace is not born out of an accidental confluence of motivated workers, bountiful benefits, and dogs in the office. They are created by purposeful leaders. Inc. magazine in a recent issue interviewed two such leaders, Ken Lehman and Yvonne Chouinard to get their views on how they made their organizations great places to work. 

Lehman's views are particularly interesting, as he explains how he sees Maslow's hierarchy as a cake at the bottom and frosting at the top - an ascending order of employee needs. According to Lehman, the bottom level which is fulfilling Physiological Needs,  is just to do with the paycheque. The next, the level of Safety Needs or security and protection, can be fulfilled by providing an emotionally safe environment. Lehman cites the example of his company which provided physical safety measures since it had a lot of heavy equipment and emotional safety by keeping the place free of bullying and harassment. The next level of Social Needs - or the need for a sense of belonging is creating the feeling that the workplace is like a family. The top level - Self Actualization is offered by providing employees opportunities to be creative and solve problems.

I thought this was a pretty innovative way of using the Maslow's hierarchy of needs as a template for creating employee initiatives and rewards.

From managing to leading

There are three types of work* that get done in an organization:


1. Transactional work such as administrative and order taking, which benefits individuals


2. Tactical work which is solution focused and benefits employee workgroups


3. Strategic work which is long-term in nature and is


       a. Linked to one or more business goals


       b. Solution-neutral in initial stages


       c. Requires multiple solutions or tactics to be implemented


       d. Benefits  business units and perhaps the entire enterprise

 The emphasis on each type of work shifts as executives rise to become managers and then leaders. While executives are focused on the Transactional, the emphasis of activities shift to more of the Tactical when he becomes a manager. And finally, when he rises to the leadership position, his focus move strategic activities which are long-term in nature.

The activities also define the evolution of  an executive to a leader. However in reality, and more so with entrepreneurs, the nature of activities are more often than not, restricted to the first two - the Transactional and the Tactical. Why is this so? In my experience with my clients, it is because the entrepreneur/leader does not want to move away  from the activities which he likes to do, or else finds himself comfortable doing. There is the risk of failure lurking somewhere in his mind.

Leaders could take a lesson from the leadership style of Kumaramangalam Birla. He leaves all day-to-day operations to his professional managers and focuses only on Strategic thinking and activities.Except when the occasion demands - which is when he has to prove a point, or show his people that something they believe cannot be done, can be done. As happened when Birla overruled his managers  and took the risky decision to buy Novelis for $6billion. Since the decision was his, he took it upon himself to prove to his managers that it was right. 

The Economic Times has a very interesting  account of the turnaround story

*Source: Robinson, D. G., & Robinson, J. C. (2005). Strategic business partner: Aligning people strategies with business goals. San Francisco: Berrett-Koehler Publishers, Inc.

Do we really need managers?

Umpteen books have been published on management, a whole bunch of management gurus and management consultants have held forth on it, and management schools have built courses around it. But the question remains in peoples' minds - what do managers really do, and a more important question, do we really need them?

Well here is the answer in defense of middle  management . Also check out the link in the article which will lead you to a very interesting new World Bank-Stanford study.

After you have downloaded it, don't forget to check out the Appendix. Apart from Table 2 (page 44) which provides a list of 38 management practices it also has other resources you may find useful.

The evolution of a leader

There are three types of work which get done in an organization:

1. Transactional work such as; Administrative and Order taking, and which benefits individuals.
2. Tactical work which is  Solution focused and benefits employee work groups.
3. Strategic, or long term work which is:
• Linked to one or more business goals
• Solution-neutral in early stages
• Requires multiple solutions or tactics to be implemented
• benefits business units or perhaps the entire enterprise

The emphasis of an individual on each type of work shifts as he rises from an executive position to a managers position and finally becomes a leader. While executives are focused on the Transactional, the emphasis of activities shift to more of the Tactical when he becomes a manager. And finally, when he rises to the leadership position, his focus moves to strategic activities which are long-term in nature.

The activities define the evolution of  an executive to a leader. However what happens, and this is more so with entrepreneurs, the nature of activities are more often than not, restricted to the first two - the Transactional and the Tactical. Why is this so? In my experience with my clients, it is because the entrepreneur/leader does not want to move away  from the activities which he likes to do, or else finds himself comfortable doing. There is the risk of failure lurking somewhere in his mind.

Leaders could take a lesson from the leadership style of Kumaramangalam Birla. He leaves all day-to-day operations to his professional managers and focuses only on Strategic thinking and activities. Except when the occasion demands - which is when he has to prove a point, or show his people that something they believe cannot be done, can be done. As happened when Birla overruled his managers  and took the risky decision to buy Novelis for $6billion. Since the decision was his, he took it upon himself to prove to his managers that it was right. 

The Economic Times has a very interesting  account of the turnaround story

The Thief of Time

The recent crisis of the euro was exacerbated by the German government's dithering, and the decline of the American industry exemplified by the bankruptcy of GM, was due in part to executives' penchant for delaying decisions. Closer home, I used to coach a client who had a yen for delaying decisions - postponing important decisions on one pretext or another. The perplexing thing about procrastination is that although it seems to involve avoiding unpleasant tasks, indulging in it generally doesn't make people happy. And that made me wonder what caused people (including me) sit on important - and not so important, decisions.

Until recently that is, when I chanced on this review of the book "The Thief of Time" edited by Chrisoula Andreou and Mark D.White in the New Yorker.

Many explanations have been offered as to why we willingly defer something even though we expect the delay to make us worse off. The one with which most contributors to the book agree is to do with our relationship with time. Procrastinators are able to make rational choices when they are thinking of the future, but, as the present gets closer, short-term considerations overwhelm their long-term goals.

Another is ignorance - a case of "the planning fallacy". Procrastinators fail to take into account the time it has taken them to complete similar projects in the past and partly because they rely on everything going smoothly without any accidents or problems.

Both the above cannot be the whole story and a fuller explanation offered by the essayists is to do with our attitudes. General McClellan, a Union army general during the American Civil War and 'one of the greatest procrastinators of all time(!)", is a perfect example of this. Union General-in-Chief Henry Halleck writing about him said, "there is an immobility here that exceeds all that any man can conceive of. It requires the lever of Archimedes to move this inert mass." McClellan's "immobility" highlights several classic reasons we procrastinate. The general seemed to have been unsure he could do anything and was always cribbing to Lincoln about the lack of resources - whether troops or arms. Procrastinators, create conditions that make success impossible, a reflex that creates a vicious cycle and often succumb to perfectionism.

So how do we overcome ourselves of procrastination? The book suggests the use of External Aids (perhaps a coach who holds you accountable?) and the use of Reframing - dividing projects into smaller, more defined tasks.

Or perhaps you could do a variation on the the even more radical method employed by Victor Hugo. He would write naked and tell his valet to hide his clothes so that he'd be unable to go outside when he was supposed to be writing!

The Power of Positivity and Vision

In my earlier blog, I had talked of how critical a positive attitude was to strategy making, and had cited the case of such a display by Vivek Nair of Leela Hotels. Another great example is that of Sam Pitroda, advisor to the PM on overall conceptualisation and planning of the Public Information Infrastructure (PII).

The PII project is massive and attempts to do what no one has attempted to do before. The project will create opportunities for the people at the bottom of the pyramid by creating a vast information network that would make India's shoddy, Raj-era governance instant, transparent and ready for the 21st century! Which means connecting 250,000 panchayats by fibre,3G, Wimax and other digital links to schools and even bus-stands!

Merchants of gloom (MoG) say the challenges are severe due to the federal nature of the country's stucture, where there is severe distrust between the state and central governments; even between the states where the party in power is the same as at the centre. Then, the MoGs say, comes the problem of silo-ism between even central government departments. So, say the doom-gloom bunch, it is by no means a given that simply provided the platform, the departments and states will jump on to the PII platform.

in contrast to such cynical thinking, Pitroda's passion and positivity about the project shines through when he talks about the project. India, he says, has a huge infrastructure broadband and GIS ( geographical information system) which has the potential to zoom in on , like Google Maps, on every tree and every panchayat in India. Integrating this infrastructure with the Unique identification Database, which tags every Indian with a unique number, and tagging of every government project would create a public information system accessible to every Indian.

From the days of the rajas to the British to our modern politicians, a handful of persons has controlled information in India. "You can now," says Pitroda, "begin to democratise government, create open government in the true sense, create opportunities at the bottom of the pyramid. This is the vision."

Pitroda's masterstroke of positivity - "I would like to do it in two years."

Leadership lesson: Believe in yourself and don't let nay-sayers throw you off-course. Let your positivity shine through your every action and speech!