My first job was with a company (now called Sasken) that had only 20+ employees when I joined and I witnessed it grew to 1000+ over the next 10 years. Being one of the early employees, I had a great opportunity to participate in framing the policies as the company grew from a "start-up" to an established one. I had a great fortune of learning directly from the founders and some very senior executives on building and sustaining culture, governance, ethical behaviour at all times and I've been able to use these learning later in my career when I built teams from ground-up and even running large teams in established MNCs.
One of the key learning of those early days was the striving to make decisions based on "principles". Infact, one of the apt repeated question was "what is the principle behind it?". Sticking to principles removes any biases one might have towards a particular person or an idea. I continue to ask this question when we struggle to make a decision or there are multiple competing choices - each favouring one or the other aspect. Once the discussion moves from this vs that to agreeing on a principle, the natural decision or the outcome becomes clear and obvious.
I also frequently run into folks that act as bureaucrats (one definition that I like is "a bureaucrat is a person that believes his job is to say NO"). They'd be very well and perfectly operating within the rules and seem to believe they are doing as expected and getting needlessly blamed. Such people do not bother about the spirit, but really go with the letter. Principles are "spirit", Rules are "letter". How to spot them? These people:
- add more non-value adding work to colleagues
- have their first instinct to usually deflect the work to someone else citing the (correct) rules
- cannot (or do not want to) distinguish between routine vs emergency
- are pretty good in telling everyone "not my job" (and they'd still be right)
- do not understand the concept of (internal) customer or more precisely
- are quick to escalate "deviations" by other colleagues who might be bending the rules, but operating within the principles
- do not understand the concept of being of "service" to someone
- insist on sticking to "rules" even when rest of the world agrees it is stupid to do so.
etc., etc., (all these while strictly being within the rules)
Now how do we deal with such people?
There are some standard ways - provide direct feedback in STAR/STAR-AR format detailing how such an attitude is creating problems, talk to the person's manager and seek help, provide formal feedback via survey offer to mentor etc.,
However if you are in a leadership position and such behaviour is counter-culture, one cannot escape responsibility from setting it right. Remember culture is not a set of beliefs, but a set of actions. When not corrected quickly the org can quickly degenerate into a huge bureaucracy.
I'm not suggesting we bend rules all the time. If we can do justice to both letter and spirit it is great. However, sticking to rules for the sake of it and at the cost of principle is grossly incorrect - foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, said the great Ralph Waldo Emerson.
Next time when you instinctively say NO or quote some rule, think whether you are acting from principles or against it.
One of the key learning of those early days was the striving to make decisions based on "principles". Infact, one of the apt repeated question was "what is the principle behind it?". Sticking to principles removes any biases one might have towards a particular person or an idea. I continue to ask this question when we struggle to make a decision or there are multiple competing choices - each favouring one or the other aspect. Once the discussion moves from this vs that to agreeing on a principle, the natural decision or the outcome becomes clear and obvious.
I also frequently run into folks that act as bureaucrats (one definition that I like is "a bureaucrat is a person that believes his job is to say NO"). They'd be very well and perfectly operating within the rules and seem to believe they are doing as expected and getting needlessly blamed. Such people do not bother about the spirit, but really go with the letter. Principles are "spirit", Rules are "letter". How to spot them? These people:
- add more non-value adding work to colleagues
- have their first instinct to usually deflect the work to someone else citing the (correct) rules
- cannot (or do not want to) distinguish between routine vs emergency
- are pretty good in telling everyone "not my job" (and they'd still be right)
- do not understand the concept of (internal) customer or more precisely
- are quick to escalate "deviations" by other colleagues who might be bending the rules, but operating within the principles
- do not understand the concept of being of "service" to someone
- insist on sticking to "rules" even when rest of the world agrees it is stupid to do so.
etc., etc., (all these while strictly being within the rules)
Now how do we deal with such people?
There are some standard ways - provide direct feedback in STAR/STAR-AR format detailing how such an attitude is creating problems, talk to the person's manager and seek help, provide formal feedback via survey offer to mentor etc.,
However if you are in a leadership position and such behaviour is counter-culture, one cannot escape responsibility from setting it right. Remember culture is not a set of beliefs, but a set of actions. When not corrected quickly the org can quickly degenerate into a huge bureaucracy.
I'm not suggesting we bend rules all the time. If we can do justice to both letter and spirit it is great. However, sticking to rules for the sake of it and at the cost of principle is grossly incorrect - foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, said the great Ralph Waldo Emerson.
Next time when you instinctively say NO or quote some rule, think whether you are acting from principles or against it.
1 comment:
Good Read!
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