It was heartening to read the article “Self-criticism within State Bank” in January 26 issue of Dawn.
Though it is only 40 per cent of the staff that reportedly finds new approach effective, the very effort to employ the concepts of shared vision, (mission, commitment, ownership, empowerment, integration of diverse individual perspectives), cross-functional horizontal view versus the traditional vertical compartmentalization in departmental silos, and behavioural and attitudinal changes required to build a new value system that would undergird a productive and progressive work culture shows that these strategic management concepts are not utopian as many traditionalists would like the uninitiated to believe.
While one would wish Godspeed to the SBP in the above direction, they do need to feel the pulse of the remaining 60 per cent who are skeptical or not so confident about the exercise.
A lot of times some of these concepts are used to actually push the vision of one or a few of those at the helm with covert or even overt pressures on the rank and file to ‘share’ it and be committed to it. The most loyal get ‘empowered’ in the process not by virtue of their contribution and the resulting feeling of effectiveness but because of the power they acquire from their loyalty to the process that initiates them into the power structure of the organization. Care should then be exercised that the process may not come to be viewed as a transfer of old wine into new bottles. If this turns out to be the case, the process loses credibility over time and is, therefore, rendered ineffective in effecting the desired transformational change. These are some of the pitfalls that organizations headed towards noble goals ought to be guarding against. The people need to be carried along.
However, the term ‘carrying people along’ is one of the most misunderstood ones. While the term means that people should be involved in decision-making so that they not only share the values and goals but also turn out to be effective implementers, many use the term erroneously. For them, ‘carrying people along’ means that a decision may be taken at a certain level following which people may be given time to adjust and to come up with implementation plans. It is this neat division between the formulation and the implementation that gives rise to a host of issues during the implementation phase. For, implementers need more than an ‘understanding’ of the decision for effective implementation. They need to be ‘committed’ which would come from ‘ownership’ and ownership, in turn, would come from ‘involvement’ in the process that would enable contribution towards the development of a ‘vision’ (or any other decision) which will be ‘shared’ only if people have been involved, heard, and accommodated in developing a vision (taking a decision) that turns out to be theirs’ collectively.
Only then will they be ‘owning’ it and then they will be ‘committed’ to it. Once committed, they will go all out to realize the vision or to execute the decision. In the process, they will bring down the departmental silos, integrate cross-functionally, develop a horizontal view of the organization, and generate work-oriented attitudes and disposition building a value system in the process which will all eventually culminate into a cohesive organization rallying around a ‘shared vision’ and glued together through a whole bunch of ‘shared values.’
A crucial aspect of this invigorating process is that the human soul stands charged. Imbued with the organizational mission that is collectively owned, the human spirit knows no limits to which it strives to rise. With a galvanized commitment and a bond forged with the organizational mission, a ‘jazb-e-baham,’ Allama Iqbal’s, is established around which the organization is now poised to throw up a ‘mehfil-e-anjum,’ if you like, that will grow sustainably and will be self-propelled for a long time to come, if not eternally. The great philosopher poet betrays an appreciation of management thought that many current experts/students of management lack “jazb-e-baham jo nahi, mehfil-e-anjum bhi nahin.”
Creating this “jazb-e-baham” is the single most important managerial challenge of our times in Pakistan where many organizations have functioned for too long around the personal interests of a few at the helm. The upshot has been that we have thrown up some nuclei of influence or suns but not enough stars to complete the galaxies or the organizational universe. A related outcome has been that we remain overwhelmed by a multinational system of corporations that have demonstrated ability in producing not just suns but stars in such large numbers that the global corporate landscape remains illuminated mainly by them.
Many dismiss this sublime concept for Pakistan as a myth as our overturned value system is driven by greed and avarice. This is a disvalue that has almost clogged the wheels of the economy which is no different from the cumulative performance of its micro constituents. This cultural disvalue is used as a ruse to explain unacceptable management practices. “What can we do?” is the general approach to mismanagement and mal-administration wherever it is found. The upcoming talent is generally advised to adjust, conform, compromise, and ‘fit in’ as this alone would enable maximization of their personal interests.
A sad feature is that a whole lot of maximized personal interests do not accumulate to maximize collective or organizational or national interest. On the contrary, as personal interests reach the limits of maximization, these degenerate into vested interests that work at the expense of all collective interests.
Unfurling the banner of a market system on this decaying landscape appears premature as market system assumes enlightened self-interest at its centre and not selfish or vested interests as is mostly the case in our country. In fact, a premature introduction of a free market system provides more avenues for making free with the market instead of playing freely within the rules of the game, especially when there remains a dearth of courageous enterprises that would lead the sectors out of this self-perpetuated state of decline. It is self-perpetuated because the decay is not only accepted and reconciled with but the upcoming generations too are coached to come to terms with it instead of being the harbingers and leaders of change for the better.
Consequently, the meaning of “leadership” is turned on the hand when it is used interchangeably with organizational manoeuvring and manipulation to go up the available ladders irrespective of the walls, however rickety, they have been leaning against. This is a paradigmatic issue in business education in Pakistan. Unless the meaning of true “leadership” is imparted in the formative stages, we will only be extrapolating many past trends into the future. Change, if any, for example, in Pakistan’s export-oriented industries will not only be reactive but a delayed one at that when the “leadership” is about determining whether the ladder is leaning against the right wall.
For this purpose, change needs should be anticipated in good time and a strong response prepared well in advance through internal strengthening that would serve to strike a fit with dynamic external environments. “Leading” organizations are the ones that create new environments for others to make a response to.
While this would be dismissed as absolutely idealistic by our so-called “pragmatists” which is actually a euphemism for our status-quo seekers, they ought to take a leaf out of the 3-M operations in Russia, where too, markets opened up rather prematurely.
The 3-M led a new wave in management in Russia’s opening economy. They not only demonstrated that a business organization’s — like any others organization — reason for being is needs and wants satisfaction, and that it can be best served through the promotion of the interests of all stakeholders. Profits then happen in a sustainable manner as positive fallout from the fulfillment of the organizational mission that reflects not only the organizational direction but also the high values and principles that it upholds in the process.
In a deviant Russian environment, the 3-M demonstrated success through ethical business practices. It thus showed light in an otherwise bleak scenario. Others were then keen to follow the suit and the 3-M started providing professional advice in ethics to other business players including its competitors. In the process, it was creating a major impact on the cultural milieu in which the Russian businesses were operating.
So much for the ruse of status-quo seekers about “what can they possibly do, given our cultural disvalues?” When businesses can actually move the world if that is what the goal is. If the goal is to mainly inflate the bottom line “creatively”, then the Enron, Arthur Andersen, the WorldCom plus should be kept distinctly in mind.
Needless to mention that if only the bottomline inflation is to be the goal of all business organizations, then the organizations should neither be sporting a distinctive competence nor should they be striving for an identity of their own. It is the lofty goals and mission that set organizations apart from one another. On a simpler note, it is like a distinction of a more mundane kind. Do humans live to eat or do they eat to live? Eat they all do, but there is a diversity in life goals. Similarly, there is diversity in organizational goals which is why so many diverse needs and wants are satisfied in the market place.
The current scenario in Pakistan is one that has begun to see the need for change. When such a wind blows from powerful quarters, the status-quo seekers—-read the ‘pragmatists’— try to seek status quo more creatively within the new parameters. So, old wine in new bottles again but with a difference.
One of the suggested solutions for business organizations and universities alike has been to reform the process of governance. As for the board of directors of business organizations, corporate governance reform is underway under the umbrella of the SECP and for the financial sector, under the SBP. There is emphasis on making the boards more independent by inducting outside directors and professionals. Rules too are being framed in the process.
While a lot of it is fine conceptually, the outcomes will need to be closely watched keeping in mind the pitfalls that the best formed boards can succumb to given the interplay of competing interests inside the boardroom. The acid test of the independence of “independent” boards is the quality of their decisions that should be viewed as such by an independent audience. Also, they should be seen as representing diverse interests objectively and should actually be thriving on diversity rather than an enforced or coerced uniformity.
For, if a minority continues to govern despite a well-constituted board, then it is a change only of form and not of substance. In the case of universities, it is actually the minority that is likely to govern with only token representation of the faculty. A governance reform in the universities that militates against the meaningful involvement of the key stakeholder group of academics negates those basic modern management concepts that provide the binding centripetal force for an organization.
Lack of meaningful involvement gives rise to informal structures in organizations no matter how much the management may try to integrate either through coercion and intimidation or through the satisfaction of lower order needs. Since it is the satisfaction of higher order needs that charges the soul, it is this level that should be targeted too if people are to be brought within the formal system spiritually and intellectually. And, only then can the energies dissipated in the grapevine can instead be channelized productively for the benefit of the organization.
The key, however, lies in determining the “organizational benefit” collectively without which not all will be inspired towards the achievement of a “goal” that can be seen only by a few either inside a ‘reformed’ governing body or in a traditional one alike. If the rest can neither relate to it nor have had a hand in crafting it, the essence of reform will have been lost partially or fully.