HUMANIZING PROFESSIONALISM – 06

Centuries back when India and China together held nearly 75% of world trade; with India having a market share bigger than that of China; the enterprises which produced objects which world desired were putting humans first. Otherwise without present day computerized Water Jet Looms, how was India producing textiles like Dhaka-ki-malmal, which would pass through a ring. How did they ensure consistency generation after generation? Certainly it was result of great orchestration which is termed as Team Work in modern management lingo. 

Also, success story of enterprises when the word CORPORATE wasn’t popular as it is now, reads like a testament of their humanized forays in manufacturing and trading alike. Enterprises like IBM, who have established benchmarks in every function of their endeavor, began by recognizing values like respect for individual, preserving human dignity and enhancing self esteem of work force in their manufacturing facilities. This helped them establish production bases which fed seemingly unending demands from their customers.

Closer home and in new millennium, Patanjali has demonstrated a growth which is envy of its rivals and eye opener for the rest. Notwithstanding the detractors harping about exploiting age old beliefs and appreciation of Ayurveda and use of herbs which is very much part of Indian Consumer Fabric, the company must have done something unique to create a miracle. Why firms like Dabur or Baidyanath who are forerunners and market leaders could not have done it earlier. After all, nothing stopped them and they had everything in place. Why they didn’t or couldn’t scale upwards?

Let us attempt to draw a few pointers for Humanizing Professionalism from Patanjali’s unique run to top. Baba Ramdev connected with masses by demonstrating healthcare through Yog and how to practice it with ease anywhere. An elitist system was suddenly available to common folk and it helped people find relief, even if it came through their own beliefs. Baba Ramdev’s care for masses read humans created a platform. Resulting bonds with millions of consumers became quick handles for Patanjali.

Baba Ramdev used his clout with masses to obtain volunteers for Bharat Swabhiman Andolan to seize the initiative of fight against corruption. But in 2011, Anna Hazare’s forays eclipsed every other independent player in fight against corruption; and everyone else joined Anna’s bandwagon. In a manner of speaking Bharat Swabhiman Andolan’s volunteers became purposeless force as they couldn’t seize the initiative from Anna Hazare’s orchestration. Baba Ramdev repurposed this force by hiring 1000 volunteers at Rs.5000/- per month and sent them to help Patanjali Ayurveda establish freelance distributors. Now these volunteers had become crusaders for Swadeshi and Ayurveda. Moral force generated by this human-like gesture helped Patanjali establish 100,000 Swadeshi Kendras, existing retail store who would provide shop-in-shop facility to Pantanjali to sell their products.

By this time Baba Ramdev too, like many Indian business houses, had a cabinet like gathering of sycophants; and perhaps due to that top management team quit suddenly in 2011. Baba Ramdev could persuade another professional S. K. Patra who managed Patanjali’s transformation from Rs. 317 Crores to Rs.2500 Crores. His work generated momentum that has taken Patanjali to present sales of Rs. 10,561 Crores, where they have surpassed giants likes of Nestle and Dabur in sales turnover.  

HUMANIZING PROFESSIONALISM – 05

Face Book COO Sheryl Sandberg was in news recently. She is a technology executive, activist, author and founder of LeanIn.org. In past she has worked in India for World Bank’s India Health Team on Leprosy Education.

In her 2013 book, Lean In: Women, Work and the will to Lead, among other things she advised women to form peer support groups as a result of which some 33,000 Lean In Circles came into existence. She also told women “to bring their whole to work”; and thereafter she had a personal experience about such an advice. In 2015, she lost her husband Dave Goldberg during a vacation in Mexico. And at the end of her traditional Jewish mourning, Sheloshim, she wrote a Face Book post where she wrote about her anguish and suffering after her loss and hesitatingly posted it. As her post became viral people began to once again connect with her. But when she went to work again, she found that “it wasn’t my whole self at work!” She got support from her boss Mark Zuckerberg and also consulted Adam Grant a Professor of Psychology to overcome her grief. Her latest book Option B: Facing Adversity, Building Resilience, and Finding Joy is an outcome of her efforts.

There are occasions when employees aren’t able to present ‘their whole self’ at work and that’s when Humanized Professionalism would work wonders, presumably create new bonds and growth cycles; evidence of which still remains to emerge. Laszlo Bock, an expert on Peoples’ Issues, who worked for firms like McKinsey & Company, General Electric and Google, has written about what organizational head’s focus in this regard does to the direction an organization can take. Jack Welch, GE’s Chairman and CEO during 1981 – 2001 spent more than 50% of his time on people issues. Everyone knows the growth GE experienced under leadership of Welch.

 It seems Azim Premji is somewhat closer to Welch in this part of the world. His firm was into mundane consumer products when he took over few decades back; and today Wipro is a world class and widely diversified High Technology Company. Such a transformation couldn’t have been possible without Azim Premji’s deep involvement into people building who built the businesses for the company. Infosys founder Narayan Murthy too has successfully solved this riddle by paying attention to the question, “How to get back the work force in top condition to perform, every morning, throughout the year?” Again, it is about them striving for bringing their whole self to work.

“Bringing one’s whole-self to work”, this has been the eternal challenge of employers. In time of Adam Smith, the original economist who wrote the classic Wealth of Nations, the issue was to develop team spirit among artisans, read workers. His book has a case study about division of labor in manufacturing of common pins used to keep a bunch of papers together. It demonstrates productivity improvement as a result of division of labor, and consequently the income of the team could rise. And perhaps that provided a purpose to workers to come back next day and repeat last day’s performance and improvise upon it. Today’s society is much more complex than Adam Smith’s era. Keeping employees engaged with firm is a challenge across the board.

If your past efforts did not yield desired performance, as a top shot of the organization, become a Jack Welch. Give all the time you can muster to people with a fresh perspective of making them more capable, approachable and team-happy to observe your other challenges doing a vanishing trick.

HUMANIZING PROFESSIONALISM – 04

Once you start looking for it, you will be amazed to find Humanizing can come very easily at work places, homes and public spaces. This is because being human is genetically wired in all individuals and most inhuman acts result from learned inappropriate behavior.

Most of us would have watched Kapil Sharma’s shows on Sony. Kapil built ratings of his program by embarrassing his guests, live audiences and his team associates. When the treasured artists of the show quit recently, ratings dipped; not because the shows thereafter were any less in the content, but because many people thought Kapil was being inhuman off the screen too. In a recent show Kapil was quizzed if some artists’ leaving caused any difficulty, he said, we all are still friends. And very deftly, as if to reverse the trend, the show has begun to tease Kapil Sharma in every show by referring to his altercation with Sunil Grover during that fateful flight. And I think audiences like this because they see ‘a tit for tat’ happening; another human trait common among children and still nursed by many adults. 

So, a clever scripting by Kapil’s team is ensuring resurgent human response that gets reflected in ratings. And of course, there isn’t any rocket science at work there. One of the elementary psychology tactics of ‘Stimulus – Response’ is at work. You will know from your communication basics about how being polite to a listener helps him understand you better and creates a desired response. And if any time in past you were able to use this tactic effectively then consider yourself fit to be a participant of Humanizing Professionalism which is already making waves among the successful work places.

I’m no expert in psychology yet I like to flip pages of any book on the subject. In one such attempt, I came across a book written by former in-charge of an institution in New York. He asserts in the introduction itself that during his many decades work in that institution he came across more sick staffers than the patients. I think that’s alarming yet helps reinforce the perspective of Humanizing Professionalism. Here are a few more examples.  

Laszlo Bock, an expert on Peoples’ Issues, who worked for firms like McKinsey & Company, General Electric and Google asserts during his early years he felt frustrated because “even the best designed business plans fell apart when people didn’t believe in them – frustrated because leaders always ‘spoke of’ putting people first, and then treated them like replaceable gears.”

Recently I came across a true story of a female employee who asserts that employers pay peanuts and expect employees to dress like rich people would. Her story: Because of marital issues she took separation as exit and got herself transferred to a metro town. There her net salary was around Rs.10,000/- and she had herself and a daughter to feed. Boss found her attire improper for a “Professional Workplace”, if you will. Her boss took her to a dress shop and insisted that she buys a dress worth Rs.4000/- to keep us with Joneses. In the process that employee sank into debt and more complications.

I also came across a Linked-in Post by a startup owner expressing gratitude towards a female employee who had quit her previous job due to some issues and this startup being in rush offered her a job without interview, purely on the basis of her profile. She insisted and came for an interview and was shocked to see poor conditions then prevailing in that start up. Yet, on the basis of discussions with owners and the value of their idea, she offered to join and over last two years has considerably improved the conditions there. Now the employers are expressing their gratitude for “Humanlike Professionalism” demonstrated by that employee.