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Is Insecurity guiding your life too?

2010-03-09T05:43:00Z

Is Insecurity guiding your life too?

I was in a discussion last week with some of very well regarded industry leaders. The subject of discussion was achieving greatness in groups.

Most discussions on groups, and this one no different almost always and implicitly leads to the notion of ‘least common denominator’ and finding ways to round off the rough edges.

The magic though lies elsewhere.

Examine carefully the leaders of the Indian cricket team in the recent past. The turnaround that started under Sourav Ganguly, the magic lay in Sourav allowing other players to be themselves. The magic for example lay in allowing a Sehwag to be more Sehwag than he himself knew he could be. He didn’t attempt to round off Sehwag’s rough edges or for any of the other youngsters.

The ESSENCE of a fabulous group is allowing individuals to be bigger and more individuals than they ever could be before.

The principle of the Cricket team applies equally to say an accounting department or a sales department in our organizations. The only difference is that leaders here make sure that people are not free to do their absolute best. Think carefully about these words and ask yourself a very basic question about people who are with you as a manager or a leader - “is he or she free to do his or her absolute best, not as you would judge it but as they would”

One of the finest managers I have been associated with defined his job to me as being the architect of possibilities for people. One of the best things about being the coach of a cricket team is that you are very luck that you cant to anybody’s job. It is absolutely impossible for Gary Kirsten to walk out on the field between high-pressure cricket matches and do anything.

He is lucky because the problem in our departments is we promote the best person, he or she knows she is the best and when the going gets really tough, when everything is on the brink of a breakdown, we step in and help out. And why not otherwise my performance will become a question mark!

The coach of the cricket team or the manager of the soccer team or the master of the orchestra, none of them have the option to step in on the field and bat, or play center forward or to pick up the violin and start playing. They have no other choice but to be the architect of possibilities for the people. The one’s who learn it are the one’s found in great teams. What else is there in management and leadership if not this?

Why is it that some people are able to conceive of themselves as architect of possibilities while others, a vast majority of others fall into the trap of fixing problems, controlling, making people follow the rules or simply rounding off their edges? What is the difference? Why do most of us get fixated on correcting or improving the other person? My research and my thinking has led me to the difference being just one word – Insecurity.
By the way ‘insecurity’ is not a bad word. Insecurity basically means you are trying to protect yourself from a possible reality. ‘The desire for self preservation’ is for decades documented as the number-one motive for any given purpose. In other words it is the prime motivating factor for human beings.

When we run into a situation with our teams, or with individuals who have managed to run into rough weather – there are mails flowing everywhere, bosses are marked, the boss’s boss is copied – emotions are running high – you can almost smell tension – that something’s got to give. The natural response, thus becomes, to step in and do something. Why do we do that? Again two probable reasons – one that you don’t want you team to fail and two that obviously it would be nice to be the problem solver in a crisis, after all we have all been taught that all good leaders are great ‘crisis people’. For BOTH these actions, the motivation is self-preservation.

Evidently and understandably one in such a situation is not thinking of creating possibilities for people to help them discover their individuality and become better than ever before. Lets play along a little and see if you actually did the latter what may have happened – one possibility is that the individual would have failed and so you were justified in what you did. The other possibility is that the individual may have succeeded and you might have been marginalized in all the ‘praise’ mails. Both the cases lead to further insecurity. Now that the solution that we actually go with which is to step in and do the needful – what happens there. Problem solved. You got noticed. What did you learn? Next time there is a problem, step in again. Further praise. Thus a reinforcement in the subconscious mind that operating with the motive of self-preservation is the way.

You see in any situation or any action that you take above, one point is clear – Insecurity will bread insecurity. Ever heard of this – as you sow so shall you reap. Well its very true from operating with insecurity.

The difference between a cricket coach and you in such situations is that he doesn’t have a choice and you do. My guess is that the difference between people who learn to be the architect of possibilities and those who focus on rounding off the edges is that the architects operate from the second most motivating factor for human beings, unlike the rounder who operate from the first. Somewhere, either the architects learned to control or convert their motive of ‘operating from insecurity’ into the second motive, or simply realized that the second one anyways satisfies the first.

The second most prime-motivating factor for human beings, by the way, is the emotion of love.

Needless to say that if we were to operate from the emotion of love for the other person (team or individual) – what would our solutions be? Would it be to develop them and help them overcome defeat and become better individuals or would it be to step in and be the hero for ten minutes?

Its easier to focus on fixing a problem as there is something to do, to solve, to get hands dirty, than to imagine a great reality, extending support and letting go. There is nothing to do. Thus even when we try it, in the absence of something to do, we must do something else – which will inevitably fixing another problem. It’s a TRAP. You will fall for it every single time.

Insecurity is a result of imaging a worse off reality than a better off reality. Effects of insecurity will always bread further insecurity. One look at the parliament’s handling of the women reservation bill, one look at the few individuals and their possible motives behind attacking the chair of the speaker makes it very clear to me that its out of insecurity. What comes out of that insecurity? - Withdrawal of support to the government. What does the government do next? – They act out of insecurity created for them defer the voting on the bill. Insecurity breads insecurity.

Please realize that the only security you ever need is knowing that you are better today, that you have more skills as on 9^th March 2010 than you had on 9^th March 2009. If you do, you have no reason to be insecure. Unfortunately for most of us, the only additional skill we have today over the last year is one more year of experience added on to the resume. That is not skill. That is the most useless of all statistics. The scientifically proven reason for us not focusing enough on acquiring additional skills, of adding value to our own selves, of adding depth to our own selves year on year is that we don’t operate out of the emotion of love even for our own selves. We operate out of self preservation which then makes do so much that it leaves no time for anything else!

The discussions with the industry leaders and with them with certain teams about what I have written here got us these reactions: “but I cant do anything’, “it’s the culture issue, what can I do”, “I don’t have the authority to make changes and start rating people on these aspects than the normal managerial one’s.”….

There is nothing more self defeating, self demeaning, self doubting, self discouraging, self degrading, self humiliating than to say ‘I Cant do anything’. What are you trying to say? That you are no good. That you cannot bring out your own individuality. That you understand it but are so feeble and helpless.

If you do find these words in you, please remember it only exemplifies the point in this article that you have never operated from the emotion of love for your own self as you would rather demean yourself than to grow into a better and a more powerful human being.

The greatest leaders of our world, the Gandhi and the Mandela, none of them had any authority. They led without it. None of them said ‘I can’t do it.’ They just did. The only thing they had in common was dreams, passion, integrity and some serious jail time. Even that didn’t bread insecurity, nor did it lead them to any self-preservation. They knew how to convert it to the emotion of love for the masses. Their way was very simple – just let go and be what you want to be, the rest will happen. In fact their ways were so simple that no one else bothered to try. Yet they are the architects of possibilities for the human being. Look what they manifested for us.

What will you manifest? Forget everybody else. Even if you were to operate from the motive of self preservation or insecurity, its only logical to adopt the emotion of love for your own self at least. Isn’t it?

Yours,
Chetan Walia

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Radiant Child to a Feeble Adult

2010-03-07T04:10:00Z

Radiant Child to a Feeble Adult

“What a distressing contrast it is between the radiant mentality of a child and the feeble mentality of the average adult.”

These words of Sigmund Freud have come to life in almost all of my interactions with groups of people of the last few months, which fortunately in the recent past have been plenty.

There is nothing more exciting on the face of this earth than curious little four year old who is absolutely fascinated by anything and everything at which point we (almost as if to destroy it) send him or her to school.

People say education system doesn’t work. I say it works fabulously. We send marvelous four years olds to school and manage to consistently roll out a uniform standardized product. Unfortunately though, a product who has learned so many books and so many forms of deductive logic, formed fabricated goals and dreams that he or she has forgotten that her radiant mentality as a four year old was her very simple, no holds barred – common sense.

If we look at the research, it points to a shockingly large percentage of successful entrepreneurial companies that were started by people who hardly went through school. Am not suggesting they aren’t educated, they are, perhaps much more than you and me but not in a brick box.

The school reform movement couldn’t be more wrong; they are standardizing the very system that churns out feeble mentality at a time when we perhaps need experimentation.

My guess though is if we put the most eloquent of experts in the field in a room to strategize and come out with a system for education that will be ideal for our children; they would probably come up with certain additions and deletions to the existing education system. Nowhere will anyone attempt to retain and build upon the curiosity, the creativity, the multiple intelligences of a four year old. Not to blame them in any way because I am certain they would if they retained it for themselves.

My objective in writing this article is not to reform the education system. I am no expert. My objective is to point out certain cases of feeble mentality of us adults that led me to the words of Freud.

I am noting below three recent cases. As different as they may sound at first read, we’ll discover the similarity of ‘helplessness’ a little later.

First; in a recent reform exercise in an organization, about forty-five years in existence, we were facing problems of growth. Problem of growth becoming a stumbling block to further growth. That does happen in every organization and am not getting into the reasons for that particular problem yet. However after many deliberations, the conclusion was to put basic fundamentals in place – beginning with a value system. So with senior managers, all of them with experience upwards of twenty years we began to understand the organization. During the session, the discussions got stuck on debate of this one value system – honesty and integrity. It became clear to me that this was the very reason (absence of it) for their struggles. At a theoretical level it may seem a no brainer but at a practical level one needs to think about ethical business practices, of sales without bribes (of any kind), of forgoing certain current business and so on. 40% of this organization’s revenue comes from the government so one can imagine and understand the resistance!

What to me is deeply disturbing about this and similar instances is the struggle one has to go through to convince people to be truthful. What kind of a world have we created where being honest is almost considered a hindrance to be successful?

This is not an isolated case – I can guarantee that 80% (that’s way too conservative) of your reading this will not be able to even get your boardroom to have a discussion on this. There is a very simple reason for this. The reason is that any (ANY, YOURS INCLUDED) organization who participates in outflow or bribes for getting businesses, their employees definitely practice or benefit from an inflow of similar kind. So how will they promote a policy on integrity?

I have seen organizations that wear this mask of honesty and then practice these ways through their dealers and distributors and middlemen or agencies. I can prove within two days with hundred percent certainties that even then internal corruption exists.

Now given that the motive behind all this is purely monetary, the second case is even more intriguing.

In recent workshops sales strategies for a client I am working very closely with and deeply attached to, we were trying to influence a plan that is in sync with personal goals of people who will implement them. Naturally, we began to understand people’s personal goals. Most of these goals, to be fulfilled by accumulation of wealth. No surprises there. So we encouraged people to write their goals and one of the goals that we stressed upon was for them to double their incomes within 12 months. This is backed by the organization that in effect has a very simple plan (not known to these people yet) for these people to achieve this. It is stretched but only needs one to work for 6-8 hours a day. The only trouble is that is about three times the work an executive does in a 12-hour day.

Here is the thing – at first instance people do not even attempt to write a goal that will double their income in twelve months and every twelve months for three years. Obviously because they don’t believe it can be done.

My question is that do you believe you can do it in your organization? The reality would be in 100% of the cases a big ‘NO’. The truth though is it is doable and I know people who do it and do it very simply.

Now before I write the third case, a general point. That any of us working in any company rely upon our good and services to be sold in the market. Now when we sell these in the market, we probably educate our buyer on the benefits in it for them. The question is that if the buyer is unable to fully experience these benefits do we still get paid? Yes we do. But why? Probably because we did our end of the job.

That’s how all businesses work. In an attempt to shift this paradigm in a service company we were deliberating a strategy to change the game by actually focusing on the end benefit to the buyer, guarantying it and if and when failing, forgoing the entire fee. Obviously if it comes to that it will be a huge setback in terms of losses. So again a big debate within the business group and we don’t have a clear picture yet.

At a personal level, I cannot understand that if you trust yourself and your work – why not? As far as I see it, you are simply putting value on your word. Yet no one does it – at least no without an asterisk that says ‘conditions apply’.

Lets go back to our first case – honesty. The worst thing one can say about an organization or its leadership is that when they chose to be honest, they will collapse. The truth is far away. There are plenty of examples of companies who did adopt these and that forced them to come with solutions, so creatively enriched that it propelled them to successes that would never have been attained otherwise. Yet, there is a helplessness to choose the path. Why?

Two reasons come to mind immediately – One we don’t trust that we will be able to come up with such a solution, two ‘mediocrity’ doesn’t hurt because at a personal level there is some growth in earnings etc happening anyway. Might be dismal but it is.

The same reasons apply in the second case of adopting the goal to double your income. You see, we were taught that wealth is generated step-by-step. Our teachers said, our parents believed it, ancestors preached it. Again the world over centuries conditioned itself to mediocrity and taught it as science and a way of moral life.

But science is not in reality designed to deliver step-by-step. For example if you are thinking of buying a mobile phone right now, you can be completely assured that a year down the line, the same money will deliver you a much more advanced phone, not just a little better, much better. Science, in reality contradicts the step-by-step approach. No scientific experiment has ever aimed at a ‘step-by-step’ improvement, always has and will at a major result. Only you and I have designed ourselves in that manner.

The third case exemplifies this even further. The idea of shifting the game to doing what no body does. The solution may or may not be right. That solely depends on belief. Am more talking of the mind-set – why not grow (or out grow) within the accepted industry norm of mediocrity, why not do 10% better than the industry than to think of something disruptive? What is so disruptive about putting ‘value’ on your word, I don’t know. I am sure we will eventually do it within this organization but what about yours? Is it comprehendible?

I comprehend this though – we as adults have become feeble, weak, ineffective, incapacitated to do the right thing – for us individually, for us collectively as an organization and definitely for us, a community at large. We are very happy lo live in what is rather acceptable. And as evident what is rather acceptable is rather mediocre. The radiant mentality of yours when you were a four year old has been successfully institutionalized into quiet helplessness.

You might say you are successful and doing well and thus not helpless at all. I agree with you that you are doing wonderfully well. The only test though of not being helpless is a simple question. Answer it for yourself – Are you doing the right thing or are you doing what may be acceptable?

Our education system unfortunately teaches us to do the acceptable, to learn the acceptable and to confirm to the acceptable. The curiosity, the creativity and the endless questioning of the vibrant child is punished with hands in the air and legs on the chair…

No bigger sad moment will ever occur in a person’s life, as this is the beginning to the end of solution finding. That is the beginning to conformity. That is the beginning to unlearning radiance and learning acceptance.

I urge you to ask yourself and ponder over one basic thought. You knew the right way. Search your heart and you will know that you knew it. Yet you learned the acceptable way. What will it take for you to go back o the right way. It will be very acceptable if you don’t. Probably as such the obvious choice for you! I guess thus that Freud terms it distressing.

One last thing before I end this. A man named Kevin Roberts runs a 1.7 billion dollar company, the second largest in New Zealand. He recently went public with his philosophy. Here it is: 1- Ready fire aim. 2- if it ain’t broke, break it. 3- Hire crazies. 4- Ask dumb questions. 5- Pursue failure. 6-Lead, follow or get out of the way. 7- Spread confusion. 8- Ditch your office. 9- Read odd stuff. 10- Avoid moderation.

I am not suggesting that this is the right philosophy for you or for me. But I know this for sure incrementalizm is your worst enemy. It is acceptable and life goes on with it. Though some day this reality will dawn upon you that you will be forgotten moments after you leave your company. That day you will know you did the acceptable.

Yours,

Chetan Walia.

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The END

2009-11-21T08:03:00Z

The End

Less is more.

I am about to make a contrarian point to a popular belief. I am writing this article to communicate a very simple message – the less you do, the more you have.

This is obviously opposite to how most people will live their lives, most of us have been taught to work harder or smarter. It makes no difference how smart you are or how hard you work.

I am here today to tell you without any doubt and hesitation that the more you work, the less you will have. I have done my research on this statement. You can do yours and reach the same conclusion or for a while just trust mine.

If A is success in life, then A equals x plus y plus z.

Work is x, y is play and z is keeping your mouth shut

Albert Einstein

We live by rules. Some our own. Some inherited in our upbringing. The mind essentially functions through rules. Without rules, its fair to say that the human brain will be incapable of functioning. It needs rules.

Everything that we do or will do in life is guided by one of these rules in our head. Right or wrong it’s a reality in our heads. Our actions therefore have to be consistent enough to validate the rule.

For example a simple rule the world at large follows – Go to school, get education – go to college, get a degree – get a masters – get a job – get a career – get settled – have a good life.

To some extent everyone follows the above rule. It is a way of life. Thus our actions resonate with it.

The rules can become so strong and such a guiding force in life that if something is occurring and against the rules – we will actually make it fall in line with the rules. Plenty of examples here – a child refusing to study, a co-worker refusing to attend office for eight hours, working long hours, arts and sciences in management and leadership and so on and on and on.

Where do these rules originate from? Basically from someone having achieved some degree of success in applying them and hence over a period of time some other being terming it as science.

I’ll tell you what – my realization out of researching and reading about the so called rules is – THERE ARE NO RULES - ONLY SUGGESTIONS.

Am making a big statement – nothing is a rule – absolutely nothing – not even science – it’s all assumed reality – it’s observed reality and our actions automatically fall in line to make us believe that it must be true.

I was sharing and discussing this last week with a very distinguished professor of physics. He shared with me some very interesting stories that am passing on to you. In a nutshell he said – science is made up stuff.

He said, for example, if you take a piece of matter and accelerate it to the speed of light; according to the equation it becomes infinitely heavy the faster it gets. E=mc²suggests it should. Do we know if it really happens? So if in experiment the results of the equation don’t balance out on both sides, or if the real life results don’t make sense, he says we just take something and cancel it out with the other side so it comes out ok.

I am not making this up. In fact I learned that a mathematician came up with another science to validate the incongruities in science – the process of renormalization.

E=mc²was not even the equation Einstien submitted in the first place. He was dyslexic, he had some terms backwards. This is all true – its accepted and published in Tony Rothman’s Everything Relative.

Take another scientific generality - Nothing travels faster than light. It becomes reality therefore nothing will ever be discovered to be faster. Before you think I am insane – think about it; why cannot you go past the speed of light? Because light is the tool you are measuring with!! This is the reason. If light is the tool, we use to perform all our measurements of velocity, then obviously everything is in relation to that factor. That is why Einstein said nothing travels faster than the speed of light. He never meant to suggest that you cannot go faster than the speed of light (that is your rule). He just said you cannot measure it. Never is it implied, for example, that thought does not travel faster than light but you cannot measure it.

You see even Science is real only till its proven wrong.

When we keep living in the rules, then we can never question them. When we don’t question them then we can never change them. If we cannot change them, then we have to validate them. To validate them we act in a manner consistent with them. However we have desires, dreams etc beyond the realms of the rules so how do we go about getting them. We try to do more, put extra effort, work harder, smarter ….. whatever else that we do…. BUT think about it, we still do all of it within the rules!! So how will we see a result that the rules do not permit? – Answer : We won’t.

If living by these rules was the answer or if the rules were correct in the first place, then theoretically everyone following them should experience the same level of success and happiness. Reality is certainly very different.

If even the scientific rules were to be correct – then any two people facing a certain illness, be it anything, having the exact same symptoms – should react in the same manner to a same medicine. Will they? Two patients with the same cancer – will they both be cured by the same medicine? Some do get cured and some don’t…

There are not really rules. It’s an assumed state of mind. We chose to observe things that fall within the rule set. We encounter every single day thousands of ‘possibilities’ that are not within the rule set – is it possible that these opportunities simply pass us by because its not in the scope of our rules and so we don’t see them? After all how can we expect to see anything faster than light when light is the fastest?

You see what we do not expect to see, does not occur!

There is a law of quantum probability – the act of observing something causes it to cohere into what we expect to see. That is when a specific outcome is not expected then the causes to make the unexpected happen will not be seen automatically.

What you expect – you will experience. The more you do, the less you will get because within the rules you can only get what the rules provide for. So doing more means getting less of what you really want. Believe you me I have rarely seen a person write a goal that falls in the realm of rules. So how on Earth will ‘doing more’ get the result.

When you begin to loosen your rule set concerning what is possible, you will automatically begin to see a lot of other things. Change will in reality occur when you STOP trying to do something, not when you are trying to make something happen. Change will occur with THE END not with the beginning. Changing how you will perceive, changing the rules, changes your observations, which can change your outcomes, right now!

It is our attempts to do something, our need to constantly observe something (to validate our theories of life) and our desire to be powerful within these rules, that keep us from experiencing those things.

I’ll give you an example - five years ago I was trying to write a book. I started plenty of times but wouldn’t be able to go beyond a few pages. Every time I wrote a few pages, I couldn’t figure out what next, what will be the flow, how will I take it to at least a 150 pages. The more I tried to do it, the more I failed. Then one day (of course not conscious about all this that I am writing today) I stopped trying. The desire remained, the book in reality far away. I stopped trying to write the book and got back to writing my monthly articles. Suddenly at the end of the year I realized that 20 articles packed together = the book. It happened. Simple rule that changed was that book has to 150 connected pages. Whoever said that was a rule… it isn’t. The book is out and most of you have it.

The more you do within the rule set, the less you get. ‘The end’ will be the change, the result.

It’s very simple. It’s common sense. All you need to do is three things.

ONE – Drop it – means a state of altered possibility where other rules, or NO rules apply at all. Abandon them.

TWO – Intent – Intent is very misunderstood. We normally think intent means deciding what we want and then trying hard to get it. Right? This means a lot of work. Why should you work so much? Because you probably don’t think you will get it otherwise. Because you already don’t have it. It is your desire to have the thing combined with your belief that you will not get it that amplifies the state of not having it. Intent is simply a virtual reality. Its just intent. Intent means intent, pick up any dictionary – none will say intent means doing something. Simply intent.

THREE- Let Go – Simply means let go. Embrace the end of rules and let go. THE MORE YOU LET GO, THE MORE THE THINGS WILL OCCUR. Don’t try to do something, the more you will do the more it will elude you. Just let go and It will happen. “Intelligence is simply your faith in your heart and mind” So keep the faith and let go of ‘doing’ – the new doing will happen without you realizing it and oftentimes not just by you, providence too.

If you are skeptical about the above three things. TRY IT. Try it with any small thing. Drop the rules, place the intent and let go… Give providence, give chance a chance…..

Bruce Lee taught three key principles to his students:

1- absorb what is useful., 2- Discard the classical mess which basically means the clutter, the reality, the rules and your way for the way things are and finally, 3- No way as the way means apply the rules that show up, not the one’s of the past that is entertain all possibilities.

The End is the change. Doing something in the current reality isn’t. The reality remains, the rules prevail. You see we can transform reality by breathing in one reality set, pausing a moment, letting go of it, and breathing out another reality set. If you have got the point in this article, then it is not as difficult as it sounds; and if it does not sound difficult anyways, that is because it is not.

To your endings.

Chetan Walia.

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Management by Values – NOT by Economics

2009-09-16T13:50:00Z

Management by Values – NOT by Economics

Marvin Bower, a law graduate, joined McKinsey in 1933. A mere six years later upon the death of James O. Mckinsey, Bower bought over the then 18 person management accounting firm with regional presence and 13 year history of problematic existence. The 35 year old Marvin Bower was the founder, creator and inventor of ‘management consulting.’

Lets put this in perspective – in the 30’s and 40’s in the US, business was regarded as a job less desirable than any profession like law, medicine, armed forces etc. it was usually meant for the third or the fourth child who had nothing to inherit.

Marvin after taking over the company, shut down the accounting division and the cash flow as a result. He was certain that the business McKinsey will be in will be management consulting. In the journey he envisioned working with top managements to solve their biggest problems.

His decision making, philosophy and concept of management and that he laid down for his firm was this – do what is in the interest of the client and in the ‘long-term’ interest of the firm, else don’t do it. From the moment of acquiring ownership until his formal retirement in 1992 Marvin lived and breathed this vision. He led by values, the economics came by.

In 1959, the best performing associate in the office was Gerry Adlinger. He was smart, in charge of significant revenues (almost 30%) and was viewed as future leader. He was working on a top management organization study. He had recommended a change and creation of a new division and position to the client. He recommended himself for that position, not in writing or formally but in verbal communication. The CEO happened to be a good friend of Marvin and told him what had happened. Marvin asked Gerry if it were true and Gerry said ‘Yes’…. Marvin told him,” you have 30 minutes to clear out. Its done and over.”

McKinsey during the days had promoted a culture where expressing dissent was encouraged.. Many people thus alarmed by the potential loss of business expressed their dissent on Marvin’s hasty solution. They argued that it was an informal chat and Gerry, given his record, could have been given a warning. Marvin simply responded by saying, “if you are not willing to take the pain to live by your principles, then why have the principles.”

A few days later Gerry told one of his close friends at the company, “he did the right thing. I violated values. And knowingly. Had he not done this, this would have only grown. And values would have been consumed by economics.”

You must be wondering why I am narrating this story. Its to emphasize and re-emphasize a very critical point about modern day management. Most organizations, my guess is 90% of them, most likely yours too govern by economics of the business. Most organizations I speak to or happen to visit these days have very exciting visions and goals. Some doubling their business in two years, some in five and some even tripling it. Anything wrong with that? Absolutely not. Just that in my view, it’s an incorrect approach to achieve the economic goals of the business and will eventually be defeated in the very goal.

Just examine the Gerry example. How many companies do you know who will fire a guy controlling 30% of your business on a ‘value based’ issue? Will yours?

You might say why should they? After all we are on track for business goals.

Economic goals and missions do not achieve it’s objective if they become the prime objective. There is a reason for that – which is that performance gets tolerated and rewarded over inherent business values. Thus the executives behaving against the core values lead you to culture of ‘money mindedness’, jealousies, bickering etc. This may serve your financial goals in the short term though lead you to a possible collapse in the long.

Establishing sound economics is essential to creating an organization, though nothing can beat a sterling reputation and outstanding people. Financials over reputation (of providing excellence) will lead businesses to compromises and therefore to losing independence to provide excellence. Think of this within your organization, how many times have you provided a service or product to a client because ‘he wanted it’ or because ’it was easier to sell’ versus ‘a solution that you knew would really be the right one???? How many times? I’ll answer it for you – plenty… The reason is the pressure on you to deliver on the financial results.

Though all of this sounds very normal and correct – there is a downside. Management through economic orientation does not always do the right thing. What is the right thing? You exist because you have a customer. The right thing therefore is whatever is in the best interest of the customer, whether or not he knows or realizes it!! Management through economics cannot achieve this, management through values can. The number one value has to be the customer.

A couple of days back, I was meeting with an ex-client and a CEO of a 3000 CR company. They have a goal – to be 7500 CR in the next five years. A year back they hired one of the big (BIG) consulting firms to help them structure and strategize to achieve this. My friend tells me he told them what he had in mind, his vision, his goals etc and the consulting company did an outstanding job. So much so that he is about to give them a new project. I was going through some of the stuff that this ‘highly reputed’ firm did and to say the least I was totally disgusted. Let me give you an example of what I have been saying so far – the firm met with the CEO, listened to his big plans and dreams of achieving this monstrous financial goal and started putting their thoughts in place.. I was going through this very beautifully designed, aesthetically flawless ‘values’ document that has been arrived at. Of those SIX values, not one mentions the customer, not one mentions integrity and ethics in reaching a vision and not mentions ‘people inside’… They do mention things like focus, speed, profit, risks etc…

For anyone who has studied or experienced management will know that this is flawed. You see our values (individually or as a business) will guide our behaviors. Our behaviors will achieve the performance. I asked my friend what is the number one reason that will be instrumental in his achieving 7500 cr. He said “we already have pipeline of assured orders. All we need is our customer to stay with us and our people to serve them well.” I looked at him and asked him a very simple question “which one of your values encourage this?”

You see the consulting company did what the client wanted to see. They didn’t by any stretch of imagination even attempt to figure what might be the right thing to do. The reason is simple – the consulting companies more than anyone is guided by ‘economic results’ internally… I said it before and I say this again Management through economic orientation does not always do the right thing.

Will values like focus, speed, profit, risks bring in results – yes they might.. Will they create an organization for the long term… NO.. People create organizations and businesses, people, internally and externally. An organization that does not adopt an ‘outside-in’ approach cannot survive the test of time. Outside-In means looking at everything from the point of view of the customer.

The final question I asked my friend was “which company do you think your customers want to do business with? The one that has a vision statement saying 7500cr in 5 yrs or one that endures customers? What do you want your people to do? Chase customers, get them, then push the plant, do something and the end of the day somehow deliver it too OR focus on servicing the customer in areas critical to them, provide solutions, develop excellent relations and create a reputation of being trusted the most”

The answers were simple. One is a result of management by economics. One can be an outcome of focusing on values.

My friend couldn’t believe the end of our two hour meeting that he paid a couple of crores to the consulting firm. I wasn’t surprised. This isn’t the first time I have seen value destroyed. See, the people consulting with the company on behalf of the firm are not to be blamed. They work hard, really do, and give their all to the client. It’s the culture prevailing inside the firm of financial goals that prevents them to take the risk to act independently and fearlessly – thus they are unable to question the CEO and tell him he is wrong.

I remember three or four years ago, we were consulting with a smallish company. We together brainstormed hundreds of ideas and strategies, implemented too.. It didn’t work. I now realize why.. All the time we were focused on business results. The client couldn’t understand that with a great team why the results weren’t coming, neither could I so we kept trying new, different things. We forgot ’values’. It got ignored, whether the values, were being lived and implemented. In hindsight I am 110% sure, if we did just that, the rest would have fallen in place.

Professional values are not personal values, they fundamentally differ in substance and purpose. However the leadership must demonstrate the same vigor and integrity in living by business values. Business values establish a mind-set and a compass for decisions made and actions taken.

Invariably, irrespective of the documented values, economics and financial goals tend to become the prime drivers. One must realize that business values, whichever one it may be provide parameters that define the business’s objectives and means of competition and serving customers – thus defining the long term gain of the business.

Values involve a DELIBERATE CHOICE of means to achieve goals and guidelines for all decisions in pursuit. This statement to me suggests that it is a no-brainer for any business to center it’s goals around the customer. Logically, even if someone has half a brain, customer oriented values will chose decisions in their interest, chose actions in their interest, will ensure the customer wins, will ensure that he’s with you. Will ensure reputation and thereby ensure market capitalization and profits as a by product. If only we applied a quarter of that half, we’ll immediately realize that financial objectives are not values and cannot be allowed as a guideline, unfortunately we lead it to become the parameter.

Professional values are not financial objectives. While financial considerations cannot be ignored, business goals must not be financial. If they are, the business will fail to serve it’s customers and ultimately enjoy less profit.

Think about it!!

Yours,

Chetan Walia

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