I stumbled upon an old article by Professor Gary Hamel, where he talks about “The Hole in the Soul of Business.” In his compelling style, he asks us to re-think the language of business. Here are some excerpts:

Here’s an experiment for you. Pull together your company’s latest annual report, its mission statement, and your CEOs last few blog posts. Read through these documents and note the key phrases. Make a list of oft-repeated words. Now do a little content analysis. What are the goals and ideas that get a lot of airtime in your company? It’s probably notions like superiority, advantage, leadership, differentiation, value, focus, discipline, accountability, and efficiency. Nothing wrong with this, but do these goals quicken your pulse? Do they speak to your heart? Are they “good” in any cosmic sense?

Now think about Michelangelo, Galileo, Jefferson, Gandhi, William Wilberforce. Martin Luther King and Mother Theresa. What were the ideals that inspired these individuals to acts of greatness? Was it anything on your list of commercial values? Probably not. Remarkable contributions are typically spawned by a passionate commitment to transcendent values such as beauty, truth, wisdom, justice, charity, fidelity, joy, courage and honor.

I talk to a lot of CEOs, and every one professes a commitment to building a “high performance” organization—but is this really possible if the core values of the corporation are venal rather than venerable? I think not. And that’s why humanizing the language and practice of management is a business imperative (as well as a moral duty).

Again, there’s nothing wrong with utilitarian values like profit, advantage and efficiency, but they lack nobility. Reflect for a moment on the avarice and irresponsibility that produced the recent banking crisis, and wreaked havoc at Enron, WorldCom, Adelphia and a host of other scandal-plagued companies. If corporate leaders and their acolytes are not slaves to some meritorious social purpose, they run the risk of being enslaved by their own ignoble appetites. An uplifting sense of purpose is more than an impetus for individual accomplishment, it is also a necessary insurance policy against expediency and impropriety.

Every organization is “values-driven.” The only question is, what values are in the driver’s seat?

There was a time when Disney was in the joy business. Animators, theme park employees and executives were united in their quest to wring gasps of wonderment and delight from children across the globe. Today, Apple is in the beauty business. It uses its prodigious software and design talents to produce products and services that are aesthetic stand-outs. There are many within Google who believe their company is in the wisdom business, who talk about raising the world’s IQ, democratizing knowledge and empowering people with information. Sadly, though, this kind of dedication to big-hearted goals and high-minded ideals is all too rare in business. Nevertheless, I believe that long-lasting success, both personal and corporate, stems from an allegiance to the sublime and the majestic.

Now, more than ever, companies and leaders need to build a greater sense of purpose to create great workplaces and produce sustainable results. After all, “meaning” is the new money. Oh! Let me stop writing now before I, inadvertently, start using my own frequently-used-terms!

So, how are you changing the language you use at work? What questions & answers are you rephrasing?

Often I find that “information” is the key. It is one of the most powerful sources of individual competitive advantages in an organizational context. In most cases, we find that the higher  you are in the hierarchy, the more information you have. Authority is the mirror image of the information one has. In a way, how much should you know is dependent on where you sit across a range of job grades! And, we are not just talking about sensitive information like detailed financials or diversity reports (though I don’t feel these are sensitive!). We are talking the essentials – information about product / services, procedures, systems, repository of innovative ideas, best practices, customer insights or even people – as to who specializes in what or who is the “go-to” person for a particular issue. And, all this information is usually sitting pretty somewhere “up” there! Far away from people, who might need it the most!

If this issue is unchecked, often I see cases of “information hoarding”. As humans, we like to “own” things – put a seal on them – “mine”! It appears we sometimes do the same with information. Especially, when organization structures / practices / culture does not place enough emphasis (I am not talking about mere lip service) on sharing. Worst of all, the whole system sometimes ends up rewarding the ones who hoard information. After all, information is power and one can succeed with the right information. So, that becomes the norm. The message is out. “Hold on to the information. You are better off keeping it to yourself, rather than sharing it with everyone. You can get things done. Win that big bonus. Become a star. And you can outpace others in office.”

What does this lead to? Sooner, rather than later – poor enterprise performance. Let me give some examples, which you might be able to relate to:

• You call your bank’s phone-banking line because you have a wrong transaction in your account – nothing very major. The phone-banking rep puts you on hold to look into the manual on how to address the problem. Doesn’t find the right information and transfers your call to the “relevant” department. Again, no resolution. Looks like something is missing in the manual. Or maybe, some one sat there up in the corner office and designed it without knowing the ground realities. Finally, the call is transferred to the “manager”, who is able to reverse the transaction and closes out the issue. You look at your watch and realize that was 20 minutes of your time for a $10 transaction!

• You are attending an exhibition where companies are demonstrating some fancy manufacturing machinery. It’s a big event. You set your eyes on a piece of work, and you reckon it can improve your plant’s productivity by 10-15%. But, you are worried about energy consumption and ask the company’s reps “I know this machinery can be customized to a customer’s needs. Which specific components are most customizable from the point of reducing energy consumption, while maintaining productivity?” The rep looks at you, looks at his colleagues. Smiles. “I will have to get back to you.” Wonders to himself “Boss knows!”. And, you move on to talk to some of the other stalls at the exhibition.

• A customer calls you and asks you to come over to make a sales pitch on a specific subject, say business continuity services. Given the customer’s industry, you know that your colleague in another team had made a similar pitch a few years back. You go to her, ask for some materials that you can re-use. She says, “I am a bit busy. Getting on a plane soon. Will try to send something in the next 1 week”. Oh! The customer wanted the presentation tomorrow. And you get back to your desk and spend the rest of the day (and part of the night) in re-inventing something that already exists in a fine form. Talk about putting in productive hours at work!

The list is endless. And, the potential for productivity gains by addressing this area is endless too. I feel very passionately for this issue, since I have seen hundreds of people, including myself, being affected by this. And even more so, because now we really seem to have enabling technology to support information sharing like never before. And that is a very important development. But, technology in itself can never ever be the ultimate solution. It’s a tool, not an outcome. More importantly, it will have to be about imbibing the value of sharing, building a culture which supports and disproportionately rewards “information disseminators”.

We need to free up information. What has been your experience? How can we hack companies’ management practices and liberate the information to reach where it truly belongs – the people? How can we bust these islands of information? How can we build this component of “the ideal enterprise”. How can we do that? Tell me now!

Dov Seidman wrote an interesting piece in Bloomberg BusinessWeek on “Why We Cannot “Motivate” Employee Engagement”. Here are some excerpts which I found very interesting:

WHAT MASQUERADES AS ENGAGEMENT

This problem was illustrated in a recent IBM television commercial, in which a motivational speaker decked out in an “Innovation Man” costume struts in front of a line of office workers standing at attention. Innovation Man singles out one of the professionals and peppers him with repeated taunts and questions as to whether he is “fired up” to innovate. The worker dutifully responds, “Sir! Yes, sir!” Innovation Man then questions the employee’s commitment: “Why are you fired up?!” The befuddled employee pauses before replying, “I don’t have any idea.”

We cannot “motivate” engagement (or innovation, growth, or succession for that matter); instead, we must inspire the kind of outcomes we want by rooting ourselves in a set of values, being in the grip of an idea worthy of dedication and commitment, connecting around a meaningful and shared purpose, and aligning around a common, deep, and sustainable set of human, societal, and environmental values.

A VALUABLE, AND VALUES-BASED, ALTERNATIVE

This is the new frontier, where companies work in a systemic manner to ensure alignment of their purpose and mission to their business strategies and vision, and then cascade this inspiration through their core values into specific leadership behaviors. Only when observable leadership behaviors are identified, communicated, measured, tracked, managed, and integrated into business processes and talent-management systems can an organization evolve on its cultural journey.

Improving employee engagement does not require executives to don their motivational capes and work on improving employee engagement. Instead, the process begins with a simple question about the workforce, a query whose answer leaders should act upon: Are our employees inspired?

I agree with the viewpoint. While we still need metrics and conventional approaches to build accountability and ownership, sometimes we focus excessively on them and lose sight of the essence of the matter. A more intrinsic approach is called for.

Apparently, Zappos just completed their 1st anniversary of their merger with Amazon and Tony posted the email he sent to all Zappos employees when the merger was announced (highly recommended for reading). The communication instantly struck a very positive note with me. It was:

• The message and the details are crisp and clear.
• He explained the rationale for the decision by highlighting the top 3 reasons, which are easy to understand.
• He clearly assured people about the incoming change at multiple points in the email. And, his assurance was complete, not guarded.
• Every change brings forth a lot of questions in the employees’ minds and Tony tries to answer them. But, very cleverly, the most burning questions are a part of the body of the main message, while the remaining are parked at the end of the message. It is so important not to overwhelm people with information overload.
• Tony comes across as extremely transparent in his communication. For instance, he handles the departure of a senior executive very transparently. And by the way, the very act of publishing an internal company email on the internet sets a very high standard of transparency!
• Values are important. They set the norms. And it is critical for leaders to communicate, clarify and live the values. They really define the culture. In explaining his decisions, Tony makes references to Zappos’ values such as “Embrace and Drive Change” and “Build Open and Honest Relationships with Communication”. This is a beautiful way to talking to people with your actions centered around defined, accepted anchors.
• And finally, for most of it, he keeps the language “Human”. I cannot emphasize enough on this and several leaders and companies miss this mark. Tony clearly says that he is sticking to a formal tone in some instances because of legal requirements. But, for most parts, his tone, flow and words are very human and not traditional “business-speak”. I mean – one of the most commonly used phrases in business is “We would like to thank you for your patience and apologize for any inconvenience caused”. Why can’t we simply say “We are sorry. We are terribly sorry. We are so, so sorry”! Isn’t that more powerful?

As a leader, what are your communication mantras? What should be done to connect better with people?

And, I often wonder, how and where is this image formed and transformed? Internal branding? External advertisements? There are several, several factors which affect the image. But, I believe that the internal conversations about the company is what guides this image – the dialogue employees have with one another – the vocabulary people use when discussing internal issues.

Focus on the stories people tell internally about your company. Think what needs to be done to “change” the stories to your company’s advantage.

It’s all about money for Gen Y

Gen Y isn’t loyal

Gen Y communicates differently

Another article attempts to explore why Gen Y is the way it is. What has contributed to their collective programming?

What do you think? What approaches you are taking for managing Gen Y? Do you think you need we need different approaches for managing Gen Y or is it that intrinsic needs of employees (across generations) are the same?

As I think, I feel that the act of “a little more” is symbolic of certain things. For most parts of the last few centuries and even now, India remains a poor country with extremely low per capita consumption of most food items. Offering “a little more” food, I believe, is a sub-conscious way of expressing prosperity. The act is symbolic of the fact that “we are well-to-do and there’s plenty in here.” At the same time, this act also symbolizes another deep-rooted value in Indian culture – that of generosity. The way our motherly figures literally force you to down a few more bites symbolizes that “There is enough and you can have more than you want. It’s all there for you.”

It is quite interesting how basic physical needs, over a period of time, form the fabric of a community’s culture. While in the West, the abundance of food, made it a hygiene need, in countries like India, the abundance of food could possibly signify prosperity.