PTCL is privatized so that it may be turned around. Turnaround is a term generally used for loss making units that PTCL was not. PTCL was highly profitable but not as profitable and efficient as the policy makers would like it to be. According to the ministers, PTCL could be a lot more profitable than it currently is which potential can be realized through privatization.

At this point, one is very curious to know about the extent of profitability achieved in the privatized units in cement, ghee, and banking and in the profitability of other units in sugar and automobiles for instance.

While some resort to collusion and hoarding, some others seek continued government protection to stay profitable. So, profitability is not a function of the sector—public or private—in which a unit operates. Rather, profitability and efficiency are functions of good management practices that are not the sole preserve of any one sector.

Also, short-term profit maximization is not the sole criterion used to gauge the success of an organization. It is the effectiveness with which an organization discharges its responsibilities in a bid to accomplish the organizational mission that gives it long-term sustainable operational life that will also be profitable over the long haul.

Mission- and purpose-driven organizations are able to reverse their life cycles and stand in perpetuity as opposed to the ones driven only by short-run profitability concerns.

PTCL’s short-run profitability appears to be so high on the policy-makers’ agenda that one fears a ruthless surgery in the not-too-distant future.

It is alarming in our country especially where ‘downsizing’ and ‘retrenchment’ are viewed only as reduction in the strength of the workforce when actually the two terms may also imply an asset-cost reduction to revitalize the organization.

In one famous case of organizational turnaround, the only head that rolled was that of the chief executive. The new CEO put 70 middle-level heads together who then identified $800 million in unproductive assets of which $600 million worth of assets were sold within a year. Company’s debt was reduced and it could focus on core business. The new CEO claimed that he had laid-off none and still turned the company around.

In our country, the big wigs are not so impressed by the above kind of turnarounds. A big name here is that of Jack Welch of General Electric (GE) under whom a quarter (100,000) of the staff was removed by GE. While Welch may have impressed the wealthy, he also came to be known as “Neutron Jack.” For, like a neutron bomb, he would remove people from the plant he would visit and the plant would stay in tact just like the manner in which a neutron bomb kills leaving the concrete structure in tact. Such actions may make waves but are getting increasingly unpopular everywhere amongst the majority of people.

In particular, the third world turnaround specialists emphasize a great deal more on how humane the turnaround is. Success of a turnaround operation is now gauged not just by revival or increase in profitability but also by how sustainable this revival or increase is and more importantly by the extent of human injury it caused. Injurious turnaround operations are rated low overall even if the score on profitability revival/increase is high.

A turnaround operation that offloads its organizational issues through layoffs into a society already plagued with inequities, injustice, unemployment, and poverty actually does little or no service to the society by reducing its own problems and passing them on to the external environment in which it operates.

Such an organization actually enters into a zero-sum game with the society when, like a healthy social organism, the organization should be entering into a win-win relationship with all the societal stakeholders failing which its own sustainability might remain in jeopardy as it takes its inputs from the society.

This balance can, however, only be struck through strong oversight in the case of PTCL that has gone into foreign management hands whose prime focus might just be quick profitability and repatriation not all of which may be in sync with our societal goals.

Organizations work for and not in isolation from the society in which they operate. Organizational turnaround efforts should be minimizing social costs and not enhancing them. That is why research findings of third world turnaround specialists must be heeded.

Pradip Khandwalla brings insights from 120 cases in his book, Turnaround Excellence. He aptly states, “Turnaround is seldom a solo effort; it is often a collective, richly textured, highly interactive, multi-headed effort.” And, this is important more for service organizations than it is for manufacturing organizations.

Good turnaround effort requires a good diagnosis of issues, their sources, and causes through the involvement of the workforce without which they would be too demoralized to implement remedial measures effectively.

In service organizations, the quality of the remedy cannot be built into a process as much as it can be in manufacturing due to the discretion that the service providing staff can exercise. It is communication and involvement alone that can influence the service provider’s discretion favourably. Drastic asset-cost surgeries are demoralizing and impair the turnaround capability of the workforce.

In service organizations in general and in PTCL in particular, this can be particulary damaging and counterproductive as the skilled technicians hold most keys to smooth operations. Ironically, humaneness is, therefore, also in the business interest of PTCL. And, humaneness would avoid quick cost cuts through mass firings. Rather, humaneness would spread costs by increasing the size of business and sales to reduce unit costs.

Khandwalla’s findings show that humane turnarounds show better and faster results overall. Only a sixth of the total sample yielded better results with tough measures but these operated in an external environment that was more problematic than the internal environment. So, while context is important, in most contexts humane efforts showed better results and in all contexts humaneness showed faster results. Their findings also indicate that third world turnaround modes characterized by transformation outperform the first world turnaround modes characterized by toughness. Tender transformation involving diagnosis, cooptation, communication, and cohesion gives a better turnaround deal than ruthless surgery and overhaul characteristic of the first world.

Quality managers, therefore, emphasize deft handling of change management efforts be they in manufacturing or in service. For those in PTCL’s management, who may want to see a perfect ideal-type workforce, following extract from an editorial of the latest issue of Quality Engineering journal (USA) ought to be particularly instructive.

The editor has, in turn, borrowed from Tom Peters who says, “Organization versus Disorganization. Order versus Disorder…” are common. So, consider the humble rose garden. “Rose gardeners ………face a choice every spring: how to prune our roses…………..If you want to have the largest and the most glorious roses of the neighbourhood, you will prune hard (each plant reduced to a maximum of three stems)……This represents a policy of low tolerance and tight control………..Pruning hard is a dangerous policy in an unpredictable environment…………..” If, however, a policy of high tolerance is adopted, “You will leave more stems on the plant………You will never have the biggest roses…………..but you have a much better chance of having roses every year. You also achieve a gradual renewal of the plant……………..”

By pruning, we would infer, pruning of the workforce when pruning can be assets and costs reduction leaving the workers in tact. If at all the human resource needs pruning, it will be important to determine the levels where the sickness is, the top or the middle or the lower levels. Even then it would be advisable to attempt to first influence the behaviour of those who are resistant. It is only in gone cases that disciplinary action is advisable.

Otherwise, in a successful change effort, first attempt is made to identify the change agents and build a change coalition who will then drive the change process. If Pakistan’s public sector does not perform up to expectations, it is not because all of it is staffed with recalcitrant workers. It is more because the ones who want to work are not allowed to work and contribute and are pushed to the sidelines and are marginalized.

Effective change effort should hunt for this kind of in-house talent who will be only too eager to jump on to the change bandwagon. If such change agents are provided visible support and profile in the organization, others will want to catch up with them. PTCL will then be headed towards greater efficiency and productivity.

Mistakes made in turning CBR and another sensitive public sector organization around will need to be avoided in which cases a divide between the old and the new was created thus inviting more resistance to change than would have otherwise been the case. Carrying the entire workforce along is the managerial challenge and not alienating the experienced old-time majority. It will be in avoiding counterproductive measures that the success of PTCL’s turnaround effort will be.

A happy human resource at PTCL in satisfaction-contribution equilibrium with the society will indicate the success of the change effort. That people had stopped speaking against privatization does not mean that privatization was no longer an issue. Rather, the issue had graduated beyond privatization to good management in the private sector as well that the country’s policy-makers should be focusing on.