There is a book called Creative Destruction. There is a person called Arvind kejriwal. I think there is a similarity. What Indian politics & politicians used to practice since 65 years needed creative destruction. AAP has provided the same to us. AAP has started deciding behaviors and action of other 100 to 40 to 4 year old political parties.
VIP culture and huge people disconnect is the cause of such a silent revolution. I am not writing here about politics but what has happened on political landscape is also necessary on business landscape at each enterprise level.
All our CXOs are behaving like VIPs. They think their branded education , coupled with arrogance , system, processes, only ROI focus & silo-ed way of working is the best way for Indian enterprise to thrive. They need some jolt & shock like creative destruction. During last month I have met some employees of private as well as public sector companies. Apart from many dis-similarities , one common similarity across everyone is heavy work stress & long hours of working.
I fail to understand for whom are we sacrificing our work force ? Why the hell working 12-15 hours like a slave is a necessity? What as a society we are out to achieve? Is happiness of people working for the enterprise is of any relevance? Is it only shareholders and financial bottom-line matter? On one hand customers are suffering due to overwork of employees by way of huge unwanted choices & mis-sale to achieve the misplaced targets and on the other employees are at the receiving end - in struggling to achieve misplaced targets.
I think there is a need to break this mindless run & rush for ROI , IRR.
Development YES but at what cost? Huge wealth creation by a few at the cost of stress, frustration , multiple disease , unhappy families (I am not counting yet on antisocial & unethical behaviors & environment impact to achieve the same) ? I think there is a need for one more Kejriwal at corporate level to break the way businesses are being managed or rather mismanaged (best of ROCE generating company is mismanaged if employees are stressed & unhappy).
Time has come to put HAPPINESS at the center of all our economic activities. Gross happiness of all the stake holders. Happiness of the present generation. We don't want sermon that we have to sacrifice for the future generation. Everyone is sacrificing for present generation shareholders' un-satiated appetite.
Creative Destruction in corporate world is badly needed. Anyone dare to step into the shoes of Kejriwal?
This post does indeed expose the dark side of the corporate world. However, I do believe that demonizing the current corporate landscape & the CXOs running it will probably not achieve the desired change we seek as a society. Let's not forget that socialism was a total disaster in India back in the day. While I don't want to sound a pure capitalist here, I would still argue in the merit of ROI/IRR et al.
ReplyDeleteAnd aligning it with Customer Experience through Employee satisfaction, simply rejecting the idea of "financial performance being the only measure of success" will not achieve it. I think the real change agent here (as also demonstrated by AK) is de-centralization & empowerment. Employees should be given a certain sense of empowerment. While CXOs should continue focussing on the business, they must also learn to lend a voice to their employees. Google is one of the best examples we have where employee satisfaction is the highest as is the financial performance. My 2 cents.
Yes. My point is do not just focus on ROI, ROCE , IRR . They are means to achieve maximum happiness. Along with financial parameters non financial parameters like employee/customer happiness, ethics should be measured and monitored.Financial performance should not be at the cost of people happiness. Every company must endeavor to become Google at-least as far as best place to work.
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