Rediscovering Selfishness

French billionaire Bernard Arnault decided to sue a news daily over a headline – ‘Get Lost you rich Idiot’ in response to his decision to apply for Belgium citizenship. France’s controversial proposed policy to tax the rich very heavily is driving them away from the country. And obviously there are many who feel the rich should stay and get fleeced. I know most in our country feel similarly and there are two reasons for it – one we believe, like many French socialists, that we should take money from the rich and give if those who do not work all in the garb of larger welfare; and, second, in our country money has been equated with fifth for most of that has been created by ‘few’ who could ‘fix’ the system. However that’s not how money has been created by everyone, everywhere. There are people who through their enterprising ability, hard work& industriousness have been able to create immense value and in the process have successfully created wealth.

And there are millions of taxpaying citizens of France, India and world over who know the value of hard work, who know what it takes to earn a day’s wages. Then there are sloths who want to live an easy life on the hard-earned money of those millions others. Research indicates that many, who received unemployment allowance in Europe, actually blew the money in night clubs, rather using the same on their essentials. But still they should be protected……..why? Why penalize those who work hard and contribute to the value creation in a nation, and reward those who do not want to work?

But that is socialism for you that parts of Europe, India and now Obama’s America believes in - social welfare at the cost of those who work hard every day. Protection of downtrodden, weak, poor….. similar logic? Ayn Rand in her epic book ‘The Virtue of Selfishness’ (1964) wrote- “Since nature does not guarantee automatic security, success and survival to any human being, it is only dictatorial presumptuousness and the moral cannibalism of the altruist – collectivist code that permits a man to suppose (or idly to day dream) that he can somehow guarantee such security to some men at the expense of others. This is the psychological confession implied in such questions and in many issues of the same kind... More often, however that psychological confession reveals a deeper evil: it reveals the enormity of the extent to which altruism erodes men’s capacity to grasp the concept of rights or the value of an individual life; it reveals a mind from which the reality of a human being has been wiped out.'

The socialistic welfare concept is a fallacy that makes people believe that government can ensure their well-being even if they don’t do enough for themselves and their families. Even more evil is the premise that robs people who work hard and wants them to believe that they have an obligation to part a good share of their income for welfare of someone whom they don’t know

Ayn Rand further writes in her book – 'A society that robs an individual of the product of his effort, or enslaves him, or attempts to limit the freedom of his mind, or compels him to act against his own rational judgment – a society that sets up a conflict between its edicts and the requirements of man’s nature- is not strictly speaking, a society, but a mob held together by institutional gang rule. Such a society destroys all values of human coexistence, has no possible justification and represents, not a source of benefits, but the deadliest threat to man’s survival.'

I am not negating charity but engaging in such an act should be an individual choice not a gang –compulsion. Behind the garb of welfare, the corrupt political set-up and ‘match-fixers’ fool and loot all.

Take the FDI in multi-brand retail issue in India for example. A nationwide forced shutdown, hooliganism against public in general, all in the name of opposition against FDI in multi-brand retail. And what is the ground of such opposition – same rhetoric of ‘welfare’. People like Didi feel that FDI in multi-brand retail shall endanger the ‘shopkeeprs’. So they are worried about welfare of those shopkeepers who have been fleecing us for ages? Why they are not worried of the billions of consumers in this country? Why do they want to rob us of better products, improved service, more choice, better quality and more competitive prices?

The system is fixed and so is welfare. Nexus between traders lobby and politicians could not be exemplified any better. And, they are worried about handful of shopkeepers losing their jobs; then why are they not worried about millions others losing jobs (those jobs which could be created in the organized retail, if FDI is pumped-in).

More FDI, more choice better quality & better prices for consumers resulting in greater consumption, more revenues, more sectorial growth, more jobs, more disposable income, more consumption….. Is this logic so incomprehensible?

Not at all, those who are opposing FDI in multi-brand retail are only concerned about their own welfare, of their kins & friends, at the cost of others. So is selfishness bad? Selfishness in the garb of selflessness is bad. Being selfish and asking or rather forcing others to be selfless is bad. Like those call the French billionaire a rich idiot are or those who oppose FDI in India are doing!

Pure selfishness is actually a virtue. I know we have been taught the opposite and most of you must be shocked at my utterances. But man by nature is selfish. Man works, shares, loves, cares for selfish pursuits. Selfishness is at the root of civilization, existence and life. Ayn Rand had written – “In popular usage, the word “ selfishness” is synonym of evil; the image it conjures is of a murderous brute who tramples over piles of corpses to achieve his own ends, who cares for no living being and pursues nothing but gratification of the mindless whims of any immediate moment. Yet, the exact meaning and dictionary definition of the word “selfishness is ‘concern with one’s own interest’.”

And how being concerned of one’s own interest could be bad? However, only if everybody did that and did not expect others to forego their own interest whilst they pursue their own.

A person becomes selfish for a more secure future for himself and for his family and starts an enterprise. He becomes selfish to produce better goods and deliver better service than anybody else to his customers. The people who work for him become selfish for a better career and future for themselves and hence buy-in to the selfish ideas of the entrepreneur. The customer becomes selfish for better consumption and buys those goods & services. The result is better pay-off for everyone. However in this entire cycle, if anyone while remaining selfish himself/herself wants or forces others to relinquish their selfish motives then ‘some’ lose in the process. And if everyone remains selfish and accept others selfish pursuits as much they do their own then everyone stands to win.

Selfishness is at the heart of engagement too. An organization engages its employees for the selfish reasons of engaging its customers better. What’s wrong in that? An employee accepts to be engaged when he/she sees his/her selfish pursuits being fulfilled. Engagement cannot happen if people cease to be selfish.

Take the case of banks in India which according to recent newspaper reports are facing problems in keeping staff at smaller & rural locations. The employees, mostly younger lot, posted in such locations complain of factors like absence of cellphone signals, choice of food, weekend entertainment; women complain of too much distance from their home & having to stay away from their family as reasons behind their unhappiness with such postings. The resultant high attrition is concerning the banks.

Are the employees being selfish? Yes, but what’s wrong with them being selfish? And what should the banks do in this case. They should also act selfish. If they think that they need these employees to serve their customers better then they should try & act in a way that they can provide these facilities to their employee at such locations. And if they think they got the wrongs people inside, then they should look for the right people who can serve their customers better and who will not have such complains. Such selfish motives on everyone’s part shall engage employees better and consequently customers better. This shall result better payoffs for all & sundry.

In this regard, I quote from my 2011 book Employee Engagement – ‘In an employee feedback and organizational health survey of the employees in remote locations by Aditya Birla Group, the company found that employees in remote locations – factory townships had long-standing needs that were similar to their colleagues in urban locations. Some of the issues that emerged were healthcare, entertainment, education and career for spouses. The findings were very interesting and showed how place or location may not change the way people wanted to live. They found, for instance, that today’s middle-class, young engineer finds a dissonance. He not only wants a great job and a good company, he also seeks a contemporary look and location.

To ensure that such locational dissonance did not happen, the company came-up with a range of solutions. To start with it changed the exterior colour of the residential flats; it tied-up with an event management company to develop events that appeal to various constituencies like musical nights, devotional music programmes, concerts and so on. The company is also said to be discussing with PVR cinemas for setting-up multiplexes near the townships.’

Who is going to benefit anyway?

HBR published reams of paper on Balanced Score Card application in performance management and competency management and suddenly this – “The government today cleared a proposal that would allow it to provide reservation for Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes in promotion in state jobs. The Union Cabinet, at a meeting chaired by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, approved the proposal for making provisions for quotas for SC/STs in promotions in government jobs.” (Source: ET)

So you know one thing for sure it is not only Obama & Romney who are preparing for the elections. After all 2014 is not too far away!

But then the question is who is going to benefit anyway? Even if it benefits few individuals, isn’t the larger question about performance management? At a larger level isn’t the issue all about managing organizational performance? Will such a strategy help to improve the individual performance and consequently the organizational performance? And if not, then would such a scenario endanger the existence of such an organization? And if the organization collapses, who is going to benefit anyway?

In her paper ‘The Good, the Bad, and the Unavoidable: Improving the Public Service in Poor Countries’, Merilee S. Grindle notes that – “…Contrasting conditions of sloth and efficiency, indifference and responsiveness, stasis and reform characterize public sectors in many poor countries. Talented people can be drawn to public service in such countries and significant reforms can be introduced to set the bases for improved performance. Despite many good experiences, however, governments in most poor countries continue to perform poorly. Improving this bad situation is essential. Like their U.S. counterparts discussed elsewhere in this volume, public sector reformers in developing countries need to consider changes that directly address performance incentives and management practices. But even with such changes, the unavoidable reality of inefficient, ineffective, and unresponsive government is likely to persist for some time to come. Just as in the historical evolution of the public sector in the U.S. and other now developed countries, good public sector performance ultimately depends on the development of political societies that expect and demand efficiency, effectiveness, and responsiveness from their governments.”

Gen Y: The Reversed Happiness Quotient

Institute for Wellbeing Management, Bellevue University, Nebraska, USA, a non-profit consulting group on employee happiness, started a blog on Employee Happiness – tips, tricks & tools sometime back. They identified and involved 26 authors for writing invitational blog post every Sunday.


My first post for this blog – Gen Y: The Reversed Happiness Quotient has been published the Sunday Sept. 2, 2012. You can read the same here - http://employeehappinesstipstrickstools.com/

Please share my post with others if you like the same and post a comment should you feel like. I shall indeed be thankful.

Review Revisited...

An independent business daily review of my book 'Employee Engagement had apperaed in Business Line on Aug. 12, 2011. The review done by prominent journalist Anjali Prayag was a strong reinforcer - http://www.thehindubusinessline.com/opinion/article2347571.ece

Today while browsing the web, I bumped on another independent review of my book, this time by a reader of the book. The link is - http://hrfundae.blogspot.in/2012/02/employee-engagement-by-debasish.html?showComment=1343021395834

Such reviews help and act as a strong reinforcement. Thanks!

The Managerial Myopia

Staff Sgts. Fred Hilliker and Robert O’Hair were boarding Delta Flight 1625 in Baltimore for the final leg of their journey home from Afghanistan with 32 others in their U.S. Army unit when their homecoming came to an abrupt halt. Delta personnel told the soldiers they needed to pay $200 for each person that had a fourth bag with them, even though their military orders stated that these bags were covered. Unable to gain resolution with Delta, the two Staff Sgts filmed a YouTube video about the incident. The story generated considerable buzz for an obvious reason: What Delta did to these soldiers was wrong. I’m fairly sure that the Delta employees who were demanding payment knew it. So why didn’t they just waive the fees?
The Delta situation could be dismissed as an unfortunate case of miscommunication if it didn’t seem so familiar. It highlights a trend in management that favors the fulfillment of quantifiable, top-down metrics. I’d bet that you’ve had an experience dealing with customer service where you were told that there was no one else you could talk to and no one was authorized to take the necessary action to resolve your complaint. As psychologist Barry Schwartz has observed, many areas of life are increasingly bound up with rules that limit the ability of individuals to use judgment and make the best decision for the specific situation.
It would be wrong to place all the blame on workers for their failure to take discretionary steps. The blame lies with management that sets rigid rules and metrics that disable employee judgment and create so many approval hurdles for mundane decisions, that overworked employees say, “Why bother?” Employee disengagement has reached crisis proportions as evidenced by a recent Mercer study that found that 50% of employees are checked out on the job.
It’s not hard to see how we got here. Performance metrics are a critical tool for achieving excellence and motivating outcomes. But as important as performance metrics are, problems arise when performance metrics become overly dominant as a managerial principle, as they are in too many organizations.
Metrics earn an outsized role because managing by the numbers is easier than managing people. Employees make mistakes, their actions are difficult to predict, and the outcomes of their decisions are hard to measure. When employees make wrong judgments the resulting mess, in terms of customer satisfaction and legal liability, can often be difficult and expensive to clean up.
Rules are comfort food for management. When something goes terribly wrong, the first response is to add more rules and policy. Of course, managers have good intentions: protecting the company from bad choices and creating accountability. That’s what everyone learns in Management 101. Yet the net effect often shifts accountability to the wrong places. Unassailable rules and metrics shifts accountability away from management and down the chain to the front-line employee. Rules allow managers a surefire way to dodge their responsibility and protect their career.
The blame for poor employee action should be placed on the managers who set rigid metrics, and fail to invest in employees. Yet customers need more judgment, not less, from the employees they come in contact with. When customers contact a call center, it’s because there is an exception within the existing process and they need judgment that only employees can provide. Corporations need to build guidelines and values—not absolute rules and measures. “Doing what’s right for the customer” is a value that can drive appropriate action. Judgment requires coaching, practice and training.
Metrics, policies and scorecards are not bad per se. There are many benefits when used appropriately. The pendulum seems to have swung too far away from employee judgment, though. Let’s bring it back in balance. Invest in your front-line employees and then trust them to make the right decisions for the customer. Otherwise you’ll be managing a group of automatons who, when confronted with situations outside the rigid rules, will be virtually guaranteed to make the wrong judgment.

(Source: 'When Scorecards and Metrics Kill Employee Engagement', Business Week, First appeared in Harvard Business Review—Copyright © 2011 Harvard Business School Publishing)

Business Media Comments...

Keeping employees engaged, involved

Anjali Prayag

August 12, 2011:

Mr N. R. Narayana Murthy, Founder of Infosys, once quipped that one of his worst fears was that the young employee who ‘walked out of his campus at 5 p.m. one day would not turn up the next day.'


CEOs and HR managers agree that keeping employees engaged is the only way to keep them away from the company's exit doors.

In their book Employee Engagement, academician Debashish Sengupta and HR practitioner S. Ramadoss have demystified, defined, illustratedand strengthened the case for Employee Engagement (EE). Although the introduction to the topic runs into almost three chapters, with exhaustive notes on the definition of EE, the reader gets the benefit from the fifth chapter onwards. The book turns interesting and quite insightful as it gives instances of employee engagement practices at both Indian and foreign companies.

Interesting analogy

Stressing the importance of the employer-employee relationship, the authors make an interesting analogy between a married couple and employee-employer partnership. They write, “Somewhere drawing the line, an employer-employee coming together is also like a marriage with the employer being the husband, because of the traditional perception of being the provider. Much like a marriage is solemnised, when both the parties feel a commonality they can share, an employer and the employee also choose each other based on the possibility of sharing such a stake.”

Very aptly, instances of companies calling their employees by different terms have been mentioned, indicating that the ‘relationship' is not just of the provider and the provided: Walmart calls its employees ‘associates', Starbucks Coffee as ‘partners' and the co-founder of MindTree Consulting is the ‘gardener'. “This automatically necessitated greater involvement and participation of employees, not only in work, but in policy formulation, decision-making and strategy design,” say the authors, pointing out various ways of keeping the employee engaged, in the work environment.

The later chapters draw out some of the best practices in employee engagement from the corporate realm, something that's useful for the budding HR practitioner. An in-depth case study of Taj Group's engagement initiatives helps the reader understand how the hospitality group recovered after the dastardly attack on the Taj Hotel in Mumbai in 2008. Similarly, watch and jewellery giant, Titan, has used employee engagement as the cornerstone to manage challenges, say the authors. Titan had to manage aspirations of two sets of completely different kinds of employees: one from the manufacturing pool and the other from its retail pool. Employees at the plant were encouraged to form a forum to represent the various needs and aspirations, which led to the formation of an internal union. For customer-facing employees, training and development are the supportive and engaging programmes. Other examples in the book give a peek into how companies are keeping their employees engaged: Underlying Google's free and casual culture is a serious purpose to ideate and create, say the authors. An interesting CSR programme at Bharti Airtel has become one of the most effective tools of employee engagement. “The company started a programme in which an employee could bid for the senior management's time via an online auction, the proceeds of which would be used for CSR initiatives.”

Challenges

However, according to the Towers Perrin Global Workforce Survey of 2006, that indicates the level of employee engagement in India, compared to other countries, the statistics aren't favourable.

In India, only seven per cent were highly engaged, 37 per cent moderately engaged and more than half the employees surveyed (56 per cent) were disengaged.

However, by 2008, as another survey indicated, nearly 34 per cent were ‘fully engaged' and 13 per cent were disengaged. Around 29 per cent of the workers were ‘almost engaged'. The challenges, clearly, are for companies to have their task cut out for themselves: not only to ensure higher levels of engagement, but to also ensure that there is a consistent level of engagement across all levels of the organisation.

Fourth chapter onwards, the authors have brought out an informative edition that is sufficiently illustrated with live examples on employee engagement. However, one feels that the first fifty pages could have been less scholastic and academic. (Source Business Line)

Best-Seller

'Employee Engagement' co-authored by myself and S. Ramadoss, Sr. V.P and CHRO of Titan has been listed among Crossword Best- Seller.

Book Launch Event: Launch of the book ‘Employee Engagement’

On 28th of February 2011 (Monday), the book ‘Employee Engagement’ co-authored by myself and Mr. S. Ramadoss (Senior V.P. & CHRO, Titan Industries Limited, Bangalore), was officially released by Mr. Bhasker Bhat, MD. Titan Industries Limited. The venue of the event was the ‘Autumn Hall’ of the Royal Orchid Hotel, Bangalore.

The dignitaries who attended the function were from across the corporate world and academia. Human resource Heads and functional heads from companies like Infosys, IBM, Oracle, Himalaya, Titan and Professors from, from organizations like Wellingkar, Alliance University etc. were in the august attendance.

Prominently among them were Dr. Madhukar Angur, Chancellor, Alliance University, Mr. Rahul Gupta, Managing Director, Biztantra Publications, Mr. K.V. Ravinaraynan, GM Wiley India, Mr. Harish Devarajan (President NHRD, Bangalore & People Unlimited), Dr. Archana Arcot, Head – Organizational Development, Infosys, K.G. Umesh Head (HR) Himalaya Herbal Healthcare, Mr. R. Balaji Senior Manager – HR & Housing Titan, Mr. Chayan Chakraborty Senior Project Manager IBM. Also present were Mr. Raju Joseph Senior Sales Manager, Mr. Ramesh Shankaran, Sales Manager – Imports, Wiley, Mr. Vijay Kumar Area Sales Manager, Biztantra, Mr. Ravindran Managing Director – Pearl HRD Solutions, Prof. Anuradha Mahesh, Faculty Wellingkar, besides a host of other corporate leaders.

The event started with a welcome address by Mr. S. Ramadoss. He welcomed all the dignitaries and spoke briefly about the book. He spoke about how his stint at Titan gave him the inspiration to pen down his experiences. After this I took the audience through a brief tour of the book sharing how the idea for a book on employee engagement took birth and eventually became a reality. I had the opportunity to elucidate interesting glimpses from the book.

This was followed by the ceremonial launch of the book by Mr. Bhasker Bhat, Managing Director of Titan. Mr. Bhat then spoke with great élan about the power of people and how a book on ‘Employee Engagement’ is the need of the hour. He also congratulated both the authors for bringing-out this very timely manuscript. Dr. Madhukar Angur in his speech said this book is a perfect confluence of strong research and corporate practice and should be a beacon for many companies and practitioners. He stressed upon the need for more such management books, which can serve a great purpose. The present and past presidents of NHRD, Bangalore also spoke on the need for a book on ‘Employee Engagement’ and congratulated the authors for their ‘work’. Mr. Rahul Gupta, Managing Director, Biztantra shared his experience as to how upon a chance meeting with Dr. Debashish Sengupta, the idea for this book took strong shape and the interesting journey since then. He expressed his desire, as a leader of a reputed management publishing house, to publish more such innovative books in the future. The function ended with a vote of thanks by the Mr. Sridhar N.E. Senior HR Manager Titan. The function was compered by Mr. Elangovan.

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 ... '

The Employee Engagement Report 2011 by Blessing White

The Employee Engagement Report 2011 by Blessing White is out. The research reflects interviews with HR and line leaders as well as online survey responses of nearly 11,000 individuals from North America, India, Europe, Southeast, Asia, Australia/New Zealand, and China.

Key findings


 Fewer than 1 in 3 employees worldwide (31%) are Engaged. Nearly 1 in 5 (17%) are actually Disengaged. Engagement levels vary by region from 37% in India to 17% in China.

 Despite the rough and tumble of the economic recession, engagement levels around the world remained roughly stable when comparing early 2008 and mid-2010.

 Yet more employees are looking for new opportunities outside their organization than they were in 2008, suggesting that 2011 will be a challenging year for retention (and a hot market for firms looking to attract top talent).

 Consistent with the 2008 findings, there is a strong correlation between engagement levels and age, role/level, and tenure in the organization. Older employees and people in positions of power and authority are most likely to be Engaged. So are long-term employees (7+ years with an organization). Employees who work in departments closest to strategy decisions and customer relationships tend to be more Engaged as well.

 Engaged employees plan to stay for what they give; the Disengaged stay for what they get, suggesting that organizations can benefit from a targeted retention strategy.

 Employees worldwide view opportunities to apply their talents, career development, and training as top drivers of job satisfaction. When it comes to contribution, their needs vary considerably, reflecting their circumstances (e.g., region, age, function, engagement level).

 Trust in executives can have more than twice the impact on engagement levels than trust in immediate managers does. However, consistent with past studies, employees are more likely to trust their immediate managers than the executives in their organization.

 Managers are not necessarily doing the things that matter most. The actions that corrrelate the most with high engagement are not always the ones that receive the most favorable ratings. And in some regions relationships trump skills, that is, employees’ knowledge of their managers as “people” behind their titles appears to impact engagement levels more than manager actions.

 Executives appear to struggle with key leadership behaviors correlated to engagement, yet the findings suggest executive behaviors can have a greater potential impact on engagement than manager actions.

 Most alarming: Executives aren’t getting the basics of performance right. Creating an environment that supports high performance is the item that received the least favorable response in the entire survey; it also has among the strongest correlations with engagement levels.

And hence, despite an overall increase in engagement, more employees are headed for the door-

 Engagement surveys without visible follow-up action may actually decrease engagement levels, suggesting that organizations think twice before flipping the switch on measurement without 100% commitment for action planning based on the results.

Implications and recommendations

Three major implications have been articulated by Blessing White based on the survey findings:
1. Need for Individuals to have ownership, clarity, and action.
2. Role of Managers in coaching, relationships, and dialogue
3. Role of Executives in creating trust, communication, and culture among people.

The survey very clearly has the following crux:
1. Engagement is key.
2. Responsive and progressive organizations fare better on engagement scores.
3. Engagement is everyone's job that includes HR, line managers, executives and the employee himself/herself
4. Engaging workforce is key to building and sustaining great organizations.