Human beings are driven by self-interest . We make the choices that give us the best possible advantage, given the circumstances we face. In fact evolutionary psychologists say that even altruism is a form of furthering ones self-interest , be it feeding our deep emotions or gaining popularity. Hence, we could go on waxing eloquently on the need for leaders to be selfless, but the fact still remains that we are hardwired to pursue our self-interests .
To top it the decades of underdevelopment and scarcity that our nation has gone through adds on to our insecurity. So, it is not too surprising to see many of our leaders insensitive to most events around — except when they feel that they can derive a direct benefit out of it.
But it is in the self-interest of leaders to be empathetic — not only from a moralistic or what-is-right point of view, but also from a pure utility and rational perspective. Leaders gain immensely in the short term as well as long term, if they remain open to people and their emotions. A good example of this is Rudy Giuliani, who as the Mayor of New York City played a key role in the response to the 9/11 attack.
Prior to the terrorist attacks , Giuliani was perceived by many as a divisive and combative politician, who frequently made enemies of minority leaders or those whose political or social views differed from his own. No one would have really minded even if he were to just perform what his job demanded — being a back stage operator. But Giuliani rose to the occasion.
He was out there coordinating the response of various city departments while organising the support of state and federal authorities for the World Trade Center site, for city-wide anti-terrorist measures, and for restoration of destroyed infrastructure. He empathised, reassured and more importantly stood with his people, in body and spirit. In his public statements, Giuliani mirrored the emotions of New Yorkers after the attacks: shock, sadness, anger, resolution to rebuild, and the desire for justice to be done to those responsible.
Giuliani later said that “I was at Ground Zero as often, if not more, than most workers... I was there working with them. I was exposed to exactly the same things they were exposed to. So in that sense, I’m one of them.” By doing so, Giuliani fell on the right side of moral expectations, but also consciously or unconsciously furthered his self-interest.
He was widely praised for his close involvement with the rescue and recovery efforts. When polled just six weeks after the attack he received a 79% approval rating among New York City voters, a dramatic increase over the 36% rating he had received a year earlier — a long 7 years into his administration. Now, to really drive this leadership point home, all that we need to do is to compare the fate of some of our politicians after what our nation went through recently.
Leadership Takeaway:
Being empathetic is not only the morally right thing to do, but eventually also is in the self-interest of the leader.
http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/Features/Corporate-Dossier/Altruism-furthers-self-interest/articleshow/4198473.cms
Wednesday, March 11, 2009
Don't sacrifice Regional uniqueness while Globalising
Long ago there was a Chakravarti; his kingdom stretched to the horizon. He was the ruler of twelve nations. And people of these different nations Management by mythos spoke different languages. The Chakravarti was growing old so one day he called his two sons. He said, “I am the ruler of twelve nations and my people speak in twelve languages and many more dialects. They often fight with each other because do not understand each other. How should we remedy this?” One son said, “Let us impose upon them a single language so that all speak the same language and understand each other. That will surely bring peace.” The other son said, “I disagree, I will not impose a single language upon them. I shall instead learn all twelve languages, so that I can understand all the twelve people and settle the disputes between them and that way all twelve will look upon me as the great king. That way also each nation will retain its own identity and will be very different from the other.” The king smiled and said to the second son, “You shall be my heir because your kingdom shall last longer.”
Many organisations, however, believe that a common language is the most powerful binding force. It helps people think the same way, act the same way. With alignment comes efficiency.
Prashant is highly annoyed. The central office in Spain has sent him a template to fill and it makes no sense to him. It is asking for data that is not found in India because it makes no sense in Indian businesses. But he has to fill it. The central office does not want any change in template. It is how they see the world.
Prashant is doing the same thing with his zonal offices. When Prashant took over as the head of the India arm of this content development organisation, he asked for reports from the four zonal offices. He wanted to know the content output per writer, as well as the key performance indicators of content development
. The four reports came in four different formats, with each of the zonal directors adding his view point and thoughts in an attached letter. Prashant found this disturbing; it took a long time for him to decipher what each one was saying and to compare and contrast the four zones. He yearned for alignment and first thing he did was to create a template which he sent it across to four zones. “Henceforth,” he said, “Reports must come in this template.” The exasperation he felt with his Spanish central office, he has now passed on to his zonal offices without realising it.
Soon there were more templates being sent from Prashant to the zonal offices. There were Standard Operation Processes on how data should be collected, on how local weekly activities must be measured, on how human resources have to be tracked, on how markets has to be scanned. In the end it seemed that all thinking happened only at Head Office and no thinking was allowed in the zonal office. Zonal offices existed only to execute, follow procedures and fill templates.
But this was not Prashant’s intention. All he wanted was efficiency and a common language across the zones helped. Like his central office,
Management by mythos
Prashant did not realise that languages evolve to satisfy a particular need. The language of the central office manifesting as a global template is a response to the needs of the central office. Likewise language of a head office manifesting as a national template also satisfies national not zonal needs and hence are useful in solving global not local issues. They restrain and restrict people downstream, especially those who are in touch with the market and serve only decision-making abilities upstream.
One must always remember that the word ‘God’ cannot be written in Chinese and the word ‘evil’ cannot be translated into any Indian language, because different people saw the world differently and so developed different languages to communicate what they saw. There is no common understanding of the world and hence no common language.
The false sense of order and homogeneity resulting from a common global language or template is perhaps best expressed in the Bible in the story of the Tower of Babel. After the Great Flood, people came to be ruled by one King Nimrod. Everyone spoke a single language. King Nimrod decided to give his subjects a single goal — building a tower so immense that it’s top would reach the skies. This was the tower of Babel and it demonstrated the greatness of man and it made Nimrod truly feel he was master over all that he surveyed and all of humanity bowed to him. Dismayed at the vanity and stupidity of Nimrod, God twisted the tongues of all his subjects causing people to speak different languages. This led to confusion at first. Then people who spoke the same language formed groups and separated from each other. Thus the various nations of the world came into being, thinking differently, speaking differently and often quarrelling with each other.
In our quest to stop confusion and misunderstanding, to align people and be more efficient, we seek to create a common language. But this uniformity of thinking spells doom for an organisation because it ends up controlling, hence limiting, thoughts and ideas. A single language goes against the very notion of diversity and diversity is necessary for survival.
Perhaps a balance is required between a central common language and diversity of the local languages so that needs of the central office in Spain, the head office in India and all the four zones are satisfied. And a good leader has to find a means of balancing it all.
http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/Features/Corporate-Dossier/Dont-sacrifice-regional-uniqueness-while-globalising/articleshow/4231616.cms
Many organisations, however, believe that a common language is the most powerful binding force. It helps people think the same way, act the same way. With alignment comes efficiency.
Prashant is highly annoyed. The central office in Spain has sent him a template to fill and it makes no sense to him. It is asking for data that is not found in India because it makes no sense in Indian businesses. But he has to fill it. The central office does not want any change in template. It is how they see the world.
Prashant is doing the same thing with his zonal offices. When Prashant took over as the head of the India arm of this content development organisation, he asked for reports from the four zonal offices. He wanted to know the content output per writer, as well as the key performance indicators of content development
. The four reports came in four different formats, with each of the zonal directors adding his view point and thoughts in an attached letter. Prashant found this disturbing; it took a long time for him to decipher what each one was saying and to compare and contrast the four zones. He yearned for alignment and first thing he did was to create a template which he sent it across to four zones. “Henceforth,” he said, “Reports must come in this template.” The exasperation he felt with his Spanish central office, he has now passed on to his zonal offices without realising it.
Soon there were more templates being sent from Prashant to the zonal offices. There were Standard Operation Processes on how data should be collected, on how local weekly activities must be measured, on how human resources have to be tracked, on how markets has to be scanned. In the end it seemed that all thinking happened only at Head Office and no thinking was allowed in the zonal office. Zonal offices existed only to execute, follow procedures and fill templates.
But this was not Prashant’s intention. All he wanted was efficiency and a common language across the zones helped. Like his central office,
Management by mythos
Prashant did not realise that languages evolve to satisfy a particular need. The language of the central office manifesting as a global template is a response to the needs of the central office. Likewise language of a head office manifesting as a national template also satisfies national not zonal needs and hence are useful in solving global not local issues. They restrain and restrict people downstream, especially those who are in touch with the market and serve only decision-making abilities upstream.
One must always remember that the word ‘God’ cannot be written in Chinese and the word ‘evil’ cannot be translated into any Indian language, because different people saw the world differently and so developed different languages to communicate what they saw. There is no common understanding of the world and hence no common language.
The false sense of order and homogeneity resulting from a common global language or template is perhaps best expressed in the Bible in the story of the Tower of Babel. After the Great Flood, people came to be ruled by one King Nimrod. Everyone spoke a single language. King Nimrod decided to give his subjects a single goal — building a tower so immense that it’s top would reach the skies. This was the tower of Babel and it demonstrated the greatness of man and it made Nimrod truly feel he was master over all that he surveyed and all of humanity bowed to him. Dismayed at the vanity and stupidity of Nimrod, God twisted the tongues of all his subjects causing people to speak different languages. This led to confusion at first. Then people who spoke the same language formed groups and separated from each other. Thus the various nations of the world came into being, thinking differently, speaking differently and often quarrelling with each other.
In our quest to stop confusion and misunderstanding, to align people and be more efficient, we seek to create a common language. But this uniformity of thinking spells doom for an organisation because it ends up controlling, hence limiting, thoughts and ideas. A single language goes against the very notion of diversity and diversity is necessary for survival.
Perhaps a balance is required between a central common language and diversity of the local languages so that needs of the central office in Spain, the head office in India and all the four zones are satisfied. And a good leader has to find a means of balancing it all.
http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/Features/Corporate-Dossier/Dont-sacrifice-regional-uniqueness-while-globalising/articleshow/4231616.cms
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