Cultural Tsunami Hits Engagement

Fukushima nuclear accident, the worst nuclear disaster after the Chernobyl accident was ‘man-made’! The findings of the commission probing the accident have elicited shock and fear amongst people all over the world. The enquiry report points to typical ‘reflexive obedience’ behavior amongst Japanese behind the accident. Reflexive obedience simply means a lack of questioning emerging out of strong bureaucracy and collusion of selfish interest. The result - People at Tokyo Electric Power put the interest of the organization before that of the consumers and let the safety slip. I look upon this case as a huge HR failure and more specifically a cultural failure. A culture of ‘reflexive obedience’ meant questioning was blasphemous & conveniently kept people so disengaged that no one cared while the plant condition deteriorated progressively. The leaders and the HR function of the organization were unable and unwilling to change the culture and the rot set-in deeper & deeper. In the end, the cultural tsunami was stronger than the natural tsunami.


But such culture of ‘reflexive obedience’ is not only limited to Japan or Tokyo Electric Power. Take the case of the Florida lifeguard at the Hallandale Beach who was fired after leaving his post to help rescue a swimmer outside his zone. How funny and ridiculous at the same time. When a lifeguard sees a person drowning outside his zone, what should he do? Stay in his zone and watch him drown, simply because the swimmer is not drowning in his zone? The head of the company later realizing the mistake put the blame on the haste of the supervisors and offered the job back to fired lifeguard. However the lifeguard refused the offer and instead decided to search opportunities elsewhere. If such things continue then it would not be long before which the lifeguard services company shall require life-support itself before it can save lives of swimmers in distress.

Culture of an organization is the basic fabric on which engagement of stakeholder, including that of employees rests on. And this is why engagement efforts do not sustain in organizations that do not have the right culture. Many such organizations see engagement in individual events and bashes. All of these do not work since in the first place they didn’t get the culture right. It’s easy to copy an engaged organization’s engagement practice but hard to replicate the culture that they built over years.

Engagement is a culture issue.

People often ask me - 'What kind of engagement activites can we organize? We were thinking of having some friday afternoon activities like tug-of-war, singing comeptition etc. etc.' My standard answer to then is 'Are you talking of entertainment or engagement?'

Often people do not seem to understand me as they may taken great pains to design that event. They are so consumed in that process that many times they miss the big-picture. Engagement is a strategy and not an event. So as not to say that such events cannot fit in the engagement-map. But to treat them as engagement per-say is huge mistake. This is why engagement remains as merely some events or activities in a company. Momentary cosmetic interventions cannot define engagement. Engagement is a culture issue. Culture is the incubator of engagement. And if the engagement strategy has not been weaved on the foundation of strong and breathing organizational culture, such initiatives would soon loose steam.

One of my student who did her internship at Rambagh Palace Hotel at Jaipur (Taj Hotels) and spent good time in studying their engagement practices, gave me first-hand account of what she 'experienced'. Tata culture of ethics and care is so neatly inter-woven in the organization that a considerable degree of engagement happens at the time of induction itself. She told me that to every employee she spoke, even though some were very busy, not a single employee felt that he/she was in the wrong place. The hotel had a fabulous 90% engagement. Being an intern she never felt bullied by her senior colleagues. On the contrary everyone greeted her with the customary 'Khambagani' which means 'hello'. No wonder not too long back the hotel was rated as the best hotel in the world.

Engagement is a way of life; it is like the blood which transports the life-giving oxygen to every part of the organization keeping it live and thriving.

Culture is the incubator of Employee Engagement

Without a strong and a breathing culture engagement practices cannot sustain too long...

Read my column in Business Line:
Human Resources: Employee engagement


'Employee engagement is the new corporate buzz-term. And many companies, looking at the benefits of engagement enjoyed by their competitors, want to jump on to the bandwagon and introduce practices that are mostly copied from the best ... '