Thank them; they build your fortunes

My wife, an IT Engineer, who works part time, is angry with her Boss.

He is a graduate from the world famous IIM Ahmedabad, India and supposedly a man with great ideas and a terrific work ethic which has won himself and his company several accolades in the past. Come hail or storm, he would pay his staff on the penultimate day of every month. Hence, he thought his team was the happiest and he is able to get the best out of them. Several companies in the Middle East do not pay people on time. He has seen it all and thought paying people on time was enough to get them going!

Why was my wife unhappy? She had her own reasons. She was first a wife and a mother too. She wakes up at 5am every morning and sees to her home, cooks and sees our child off to the school. When she has a project in hand, she works through the night, often going off to sleep sitting on her dining table chair. She is a committed individual who thinks hard and works harder every time a project lands on her lap. Yesterday was one of those days. She was working for two full days at a stretch to ensure that the project finished on time. She mailed the work to her Boss promptly yesterday morning and was told that he would soon revert with his comments. An hour later, she was told he couldn’t open the file. There was a version difference in software which my wife found out and was promptly conveyed back to him. She eagerly waited for his comments for another few hours. Finally his reply arrives which makes her livid, angry and frustrated. There was no mention it about her work.

He told her, “Finally I was able to open the file!”

During my 24 years of professional life in two countries, I have been fortunate to have worked with several Managements with diverse styles of functioning. Each Business owner has a different perception of running his business. Into my 11th year in the Middle East, I see a definite pattern of management in the Middle East which is vastly different from what I saw back in India. I am forced to show India as an example to the rest of the world not because I am an Indian. I believe that we live in times where borders have become meaningless and the world has evolved into a single online community of multiple languages. Yet what makes me draw a comparison between Indian companies and the rest of the world? It is the pace of growth that Indian companies have achieved that makes me sit back and analyze what happens with the rest of the world.

India was under a 200 year old suppression by Great Britain. Sixty years after she won her independence from her aggressor, an Indian company TATA has bought over the last pride of the British, the Land Rover and the Jaguar. Another Indian group Mittal owns Arcenal Mittal, the French steel giant, a few clouds away from Britain. Reliance owns a substantial space of the US Telecom space and we all know that when an American loses his job to an outsourcing partner in India, he is termed “Bangalored” instead of “fired”, referring to the thriving BPO business that works out of the Indian city, Bangalore. I have heard Englishmen calling Indians a set of “Hurrying, jumpy” set of people. After an age old colonial suppression, India is no doubt in a hurry. India speaks over 1600 languages and instead of a resultant chaos, the country is growing at 7% even in times of economic depression.

How did this happen? Is it just because of the Business Owners alone? Can we attribute this out-of-the country, out-of-the domain expansion by Indian companies a pay back in another form? A silent invasion of the English and French territory for all the suppression that the Indian minds and means suffered at their hands? Or is there something more than what meets the eye?

I believe there is.

And it is nothing but a powerful brand of professionals who work their heart and soul out there to support and supplement the dreams of the Indian Business owners who is out there to win and win over considerable ground their forefathers have lost under the aggression.

I too believe in the entrepreneurial insights and impulses that drive a business forward. I have seen many a time those impulses igniting major decisions that have turned around the fortunes of an enterprise than the data driven hard work of the professional who often goes by the book. But those decisions alone don’t transform enterprises into corporations and catapult corporations into world beaters without the help of extraordinary performers within the rank and file of a business. We need a set of extraordinary people to translate the vision of each business owner and the mission of every enterprise into a realistic objective. They could be called Performers!

They are everywhere. They could be very ordinary people by looks or demeanor. They may not come armed with fancy degrees from Wharton or Harvard. They may not dress in the quintessential London banker style dapper suits. They may hail from small towns and villages. Yet what makes them different? It is their killer instinct and never say die attitude that makes them stand apart from others. You have to look deep to find them, to recognize them and to groom them the way you want. They are extraordinary people who have the will to do anything, the lust to achieve what they set out to. They will not wait for the ladder to come to change a bulb, or wait for the tow truck to come to repair their car or wait for a copywriter to produce their speech. They will do it the way their instincts kick them.

They are people inspired by the situation and challenged by the situations they face. Do these people like to work in a certain pattern? They may not. These are people who are unstoppable, when passion drives them. The salaries that are paid to them are not for the 8am to 5pm presence that they bring to the office. Their minds work 24/7 and bring a strong brand loyalty to the table which sometimes even the Business owner may reckon as strange. These people have no nationalities or color codes to be identified. It is therefore the talent of the Business owner or their HR personnel to identify the character within these characters and bring them to the fore, and make use of their incredible energy and inner strength to work for the growth of the enterprise. It is such people that make Indian companies perform to the global scale. Remember it is a country with a complex cultural structure and a politically aware environment with a litigious background too. There was a time when the whole business environment of the country was in turmoil. Trade unions brought the entire country to a standstill asking for freebies for its work force. You can’t blame them or the Businesses they were loaded up against. Both needed progress in their own, but the policy barriers that were created by the political masters of the times leaned on ultra conservative ideas, which prevented any progress.

Where are those trade unions now?

The HR Departments had taken over that role long ago which silenced the activism. Policies and procedures were written keeping in mind the issues of the employee over the brute supremacy of the employer.

The Indian corporate world realized that this is not sixteen century slavery or bonded labour. The Divide and rule of policy propounded by the English to rule India had to go. And when it did, the whole country started to prosper.

It is a free world where people can simply be a worker giving you what you expect out of him. He will work for 20 years, coming on time, leaving on time and being the nice efficient employee you want him to be. But will he help you take the company to the next level or assist you in jumping those tall hurdles? No business owner can reach the next level alone. I’m afraid this is where most of the Middle Eastern companies and entrepreneurs have to sit back and study the Indian model of Management. If you as a Business owner think of only your family or the families of the immediate Board of management, then you end up with a set of employees who will think of only their own families. If you want them to give you out of the box results you need to understand him, inspire him.

When he sees you drive a fancy car or laze on your luxury yacht, he should feel proud of his boss’ lifestyle and not feel disgusted at his own poor dispensation.

So next time when you look at the Duty roaster and ask why a certain Manager is late, check with him what the issue is, before you sign a Memo. He might be going home well past the office hours due to heavy work load. Remember he is not complaining about any lack of support or adequate staff under him, because he needs the job and there are EMIs to be paid back home. He will not complain when you rob him of his self respect by lambasting him in public because he has children going to school and college. He will disconnect with his job emotionally and put his entire might into working hard and harder. But a dishonored, dispassionate and disillusioned man will never get you what you want.

So learn to respect your employee. He has a personality and is an opinion maker too in his own little right. He also has a set of people around him. His words also carry weight amidst his circle of influence. He is in many ways YOU in a smaller way. He needs to be inspired by your actions, words and the culture you create around you. I had a Manager Boss who came to work on his wedding day after tying the knot. The first time he went on leave was some 11 years after he became a Manager. The only time he went out of town was when the company sent him on a Conference. He wasn’t doing all this for a raise or a promotion. He was an extraordinary person who would yell at us yet keep us hale and hearty. We all knew him as a person of great integrity and honor. In a way he kept challenging us to deliver our best and when he wanted results, we gave it to him with our heart and soul.

Back home in my country, when we build a house, the roofing work is a celebration. There will be a party arranged for all the laborers during lunch. It wasn’t any prelaunch celebration. It was a way of thanking those people who toiled day and night to convert stones, bricks, mortal, steel and wood into a house that will soon become a home to a family. The party was to thank them for their efforts. It is a way of seeking the blessings and goodwill of those who built that space that shall bring peace, the prosperity to it so that happiness shall prevail.

So how do you deal with this?

Learn to look into your employees’ heart and touch his soul. Let your manners and behavior make him proud of his Business card. Before you buy that fancy car, ensure your employees are paid on time. Do not insult an employee, in private or public. He has a personality too. If you have a problem do not hesitate to share it with them, they may find you solutions. Have a long term plan with short term fire fighting strategies for emergency. If your family is your world, your employees should be your family. Above all, ensure your Business/Product makes them all proud of themselves.

As I write this, my wife is now eagerly clocking the number of hours she worked to finish that project. I am sure she would be mailing him her invoice in a few hours from now. Next time she would ensure that she doesn’t put her soul into the act. From an extraordinary performer, her boss has carelessly transformed her into a dispassionate worker.

She is one of them. They, who build your fortunes, be kind.

By Sujil Chandra Bose