Un-processed

In the corporate world I live in, various surveys on quality, statistics, work organization and people management galore. A couple of months back I attended one such survey response feedback meeting conducted in my team. The survey was centered on the capability of my manager in handling and molding his team. It goes without saying that almost all the team members cribbed in varying intensities – a few carped and caviled and for the habitually querulous folks it was a treat... :) I did not want to be left behind in the race so I gave my two cents too, I’d a few bickering and one among them was “the periodicity and the duration of our status meetings” !

My team meets every Friday to discuss the status and proceedings of the week. Although such meetings are vital, if it becomes superfluous and carried out just because of the fact that the process demands it then it definitely sucks. Considering the fact that I dislike such routine meetings, it becomes more irksome if such meetings are extended beyond the stipulated time. And when I complained about the same, I was rebuffed in a manner as if it was my personal problem! I’m not totally against such meetings but time is a precious resource, out of 40 industrious hrs 2 hrs cannot be whiled away for such feel-good-factor meetings! This makes the famous one-liner in the corporate lingo that “meetings are places where people meet to discuss that nothing can be done“ come true. Although my manager did not completely agree with me, the jeering did make way for a succinct update, Cheers.

This experience really made me wonder why are we Indians (on a whole) so process-oriented? In today’s changing trend being authoritatively process-stuck may be seen as an overhead. Recently, I read an article about the changing facets of Indian corporates, here the author seemed to corroborate my belief. He says “Leaders of the challengers are not driven as hard to meet quarterly pressures as global companies are. A Ratan Tata could never have conceived the Nano if he had the next Tata Motors quarterly conference call with analysts on his radar”. Here the author not only comments about the diligent followers of methods but also stresses the importance on leadership abilities to achieve global visibility.

Although India is relatively new in the MNC field as against other job profiles, in absolute terms the MNC industry is not all that very old. It can easily boast of biting the past 20 yrs of Indian history. 20 yrs prior, when India as a developing country set out her tender foot on the global map, her weapons were perseverance and obedience. Yes, I say obedience in the sense - aping the tried and the tested methods assiduously. But today as India spreads her wings on the global map, to stay ahead from her competitors she needs to be unfettered from such process. Its time that we set a process of our own!! India has all the qualities to make her presence felt globally but she is deterred by such peripheral issues.

On deeper thoughts I realized that indeed leaders are so anti-process, famous entrepreneures, leaders and rags-to-riches heros didn’t make it there because they followed what was common. There is something they thought out of box, there is something that they denied to follow, they were the mavericks kind sneering at the trifling issues.

But the question is can this happen with the service companies, which is predominant in India? If it cannot happen then India should stop serving and start leading, well it has already started……….. but positive thinking has never harmed anyone, right?

This situation reminds me of the IBM ad where recumbent employees in a conference room are “IDEATING”.

Good Luck Guys is what I can say.