Fight the Fear, Stay off the Brakes

FEAR MAKES PEOPLE DANGEROUS.  This is true on icy roads, congested traffic and in leading people through difficult changes. Most of us have experienced accelerating to merge into fast moving  traffic only to find the driver in front of us paralyzed by the process has slammed on their brakes.  Winter news broadcasts are full of the latest dash cam capture of inexperienced icy-roads drivers spinning out of control with both feet jammed on the brake pedal.  Eventually most of us learn to fight the panic and steer into a slide or speed up when merging onto the freeway.   But what do we do if the problem is not an on-ramp but an office?

This topic was part of the very first chapter in Employees First, Customers Second: Turning Conventional Management Upside Down by Vineet Nayar.  During a flight from New York to Frankfurt a retired race-car driver shared the story of losing his brakes in the middle of a race with Vineet and asked Vineet if he had ever been in a similar situation.  He said “no; what did you do?”  He said most people will try and continue braking or slow down, creating a hazard for both themselves and the other drivers on the track.  The solution he said was to accelerate, move out of traffic so you have the space and momentum to move out of the field of distraction and create your own space to do what is necessary.

Employees First, Customers Second Vineet shares how he applied this idea and many more simple but often counter-intuitive solutions to expand HCLT’s employee base from 30,000 to 75,000, triple revenues, and double market capitalization achieving more than 30% compound annual growth – all during one of the world’s most difficult economic downturns.  His first person account was described in the forward by the late C.K. Prahalad like this:

The book offers three perspectives. First, we get a glimpse of a major transformation from Vineet’s viewpoint as the CEO-his doubts, his process of discovery, the validation of his ideas, and the building of consensus.

Second, we witness the migration in his thinking about management from the old to the new- from a focus on the traditional hierarchical structure to one that decentralizes power, responsibility, and accountability for value creation. Third, we explore the cultural prerequisites for this approach to management the need for honesty, transparency, trust, and dialogue at all levels in the organization.

Most important, Vineet recognizes that today the asset base of an organization increasingly resides in the talent and creativity of its employees. Knowledge-based businesses, especially, depend on excited teams of individuals who are eager to take on one challenging task after another and to act as custodians of the tacit knowledge in the organization.  To manage them especially Gen Y employees, and particularly in global organizations-requires a new set of capabilities.

Vineet’s story shows how a company can focus on its value creators- the front line employees- to achieve remarkable growth and profits.

In a time when we are witnessing a rapid shift from traditional manufacturing co knowledge-based companies and, as a result, a transformation of the work of managers and of management practice- this book raises important philosophical questions. Is there inherent value in every employee- in his or her knowledge, creativity, commitment to tasks, and capacity to collaborate? To create the most value for customers, should we focus on how employees are empowered? Do employees, in short, make a difference?

In a short and engaging 198 pages Vineet provides an inside look at the ideas he used to earn HCLT recognition as the “Best Employer” in India and Asia by Hewett Associates, as well as the “Workforce Management Optima’s Award for HR Innovation” in the U.S.  I have applied ideas learned from Vineet’s example with those of other more holacratic style organizations to write the free eBook below. You may not be ready to turn your organization upside down as MR. Nayar did but there are many lessons that will help you accelerate into a more inclusive, innovative and engaging culture.