CL -- RIGMAROLE

One day Rabindra Nath Tagore was very upset. His wife was constantly pestering him to pay the electricity and the credit card bills. Tagore found he had no money left. Now what to do? He never worked for anyone. People were not ready to accept him as a poet, author nor an intellectual. But he has to run the household expenses. He decided that he will do a job as per his liking and capability.  He applied for the post of a “creative editor” in a giant engineering firm dealing with steel, automobiles, chemicals etc.

The giant engineering firm had a lot of in-house journals which were circulated among the employees so as to keep them abreast of the latest “visions”, “goals” and “ideals” of the company. Similarly for their “promos” of different products they needed a person with a creative talent who could coin in ‘catchy’ phrase lines which would appeal to the public, shareholders, connected even remotely with the Company.

Mrs. Renuka Agarwal, HR Head of the company was given the task of finding out a “creative editor” for the company. After doing her graduation she opted for a PGDM in HR from a reputed Management Institute. Immediately she got a job at an equally reputed steel company owned by an illiterate steel magnate. There were no stopping for her as she jumped from one company to another with the ease of a trapeze artist. The only thing worried her was her upper lip hair growth. 

Mrs. Agarwal handed over the whole job of hunting down a creative editor to an outside agency. They promptly gave ads in the job portals and waited for the applications to arrive. A huge number of applications were received by the company which included the application of Tagore also. Then they shortlisted the applications through a computer. Certain key words like creative writing, leadership qualities, essays, write ups were fed into the computer. The soft ware programs designed to scan the applications rejected the application of Tagore as his CV and covering letter did not had those key words. Tagore’s application was not thrown in to the dust bin but went straight into the recycle bin.

Tagore felt irritated. He headed to the company Headquarters and met one of the Directors with a copy of the application. The Director looked at him and the application. “So you have written poems and novels, can you show us some poems which have been published?” Say, how you call yourself a creative person? Tagore was dumb struck. He just murmured --- “Can I meet the Chairman of the Company?” The director grudgingly allowed him to go the Chairman’s chamber.

“See Mr. Tagore, how can I take you in my company when I see you have not done any formal education whereas the other applicants are highly educated with also a Management degree? You do not have any  leadership qualities nor did you participated in any “group activities” and you are trying to impress me in believing that you will open a “gurukul” type school some where in Bolpur. Have you done any financial management otherwise how will you manage a school and later a university? Mrs. Renuka Agarwal, our HR Head has also pointed out that you write disastrous poetry in your Face book. Look how smart is she? She had already done an Internet search about you. So Mr. Tagore I am sorry ……  

The cell phone of Rabindra Nath Tagore rings. The caller at the other end informs him his selection for the Nobel Prize in literature. Mr. Tagore ends the call and tells the Chairman --- “so you can select an army commissioned officer, he will be having leadership qualities and also creative skills in penetrating the enemy territory, best of luck Mr.Chairman”.

 

Sitendu De is the author of this post.

Disclaimer: This is not a real story. It is a satire only which is not intended to hurt anyone in particular.

CL is the short form for Creative Leadership.

Our New Education Policy and A World of Possibilites

The recent changes to our school exam system brought about by our HRD Minister Mr. Kapil Sibal is welcome news. What he effectively did was to firmly press the 'delete' button on exams till Class X. It is clearly a 'winner'. Over the last two years the ministry has been trying to do this in slow but steady steps. So, it might not not come as a surprize if, in the near future, we see this happen to Class XII school leaving exams too (we have already done away with Class XI exams).

Apparently, this winning move aims to reduce or remove the unnecessary exam stress that children are subjected to and let them concentrate on learning and realize their true calling in life in a stress free environment. They would then go out into the world and and pursue their dreams to realize their potential and contribute to the society in terms of job and wealth creation.

But is there something more than what meets the eye?

It is a shift in paradigm. For the last three hundred years or so our world is ruled by a ruthless and unrelenting measurement system. We classify and compare things. So a student who gets 92% is better than a student who scores 80%. Similarly a person who earns more is better than a person who earns less. And a larger car is better than a smaller car.  Likewise, an employee who is rated higher by his boss is much better than an employee who for some reason has been rated lower by his boss. We extend this logic to almost everything we see and do. A '34 - 26 - 36' is better than '36 - 28- 38'. A taller person is more appealling than a shorter person (though I believe proportions are always the same). A larger house is better than a smaller house. A larger company is better than a smaller company. A larger tree is better than a smaller tree or a flowering plant (that is why we plant big trees for greening purpose rather than small seasonal flowering plants, which can not only really liven up the environment with their beauty, smell and colour but also create employment for many and create wealth for the nation). 

Intutively, we understand that this paradigm is false. It does not breed operational excellence or innovation -- two of the most dreaded words that industries badly need today to survive and grow. How can we initiate innovation when we tend to measure everybody on the same fixed scale? Innovation is 'disruptive' and would often call for absolutely new ways of seeing and doing things. But our existing measurement systems effectively bottle up new ideas. People are simply too scared to try out. People refuse to engage in serious play and thinking since they don't want to upset their annual measurement ritual. A person who gets used to such measurement systems effectively dies (internally) in a few years and work becomes drudgery -- something to earn the daily bread for the next 30 years or so. Human dignity is grossly compromised. May I venture to say that it is a gross violation of human rights that goes unnoticed!

But man does not live by bread alone. A human being is essentially a very dynamic and adaptive system that yearns for expressing its true potential. Our meaningless measurement system kills all this and more. We are creating generations of robots whose only task is to follow supposedly 'sane' and 'well meaning' 'advices' from seniors, groomed in the same measurement system. Creativity, the essence of human freedom, and free will are  lost forever.

What might happen if we continue to do this? Darwin's prediction might be helpful to understand as to what might happen. He clearly said that it is not the strongest or the fittest that would survive but the species that are most 'responsive' to change would survive and develop. And if this is true then organisations that don't quicky adapt to changes would die. All natural objects (of which human being is one such object) is most capable of responding and adapting to changes. But can this be done in our present organisations? At present the answer is 'no'.

But how do we create 'responsive' human beings in our organisations? Certainly our measurement system would be at odds with this objective. A good response comes from understanding changes, quickly forgeting the usual ways of doing things, thinking about an issue from various perspectives, creating good number of responses and then selecting the best response to challenge the change at hand.

For this to happen we need 'Thinking and Responsive' organisations in today's context. Not the old outdated organisations of yesteryears that depended on the ideas of Taylor, the Christian churches and military organisations.  We simply can't measure people like the way we count our money. To echo Tenneyson's famous poem -- 'their's is not to do and die'.

Surely the top management and the HR departments have a lot of thinking to do on this. It is a challenge that has to be met squarely and effectively. Simply creating weird 'measurement score cards' would not serve the present purpose. How do we make people 'forget' old outdated ways of doing things? How do we make people 'learn'? How do we induce people to contribute through their new thinking and responses? How do we unfold the latent potential of an employee for the betterment of the organisations? How do we allow people to live and breathe like a human being and create better generations for the future?

Are we too late? Perhaps not. The change is now in the air. The old world order is changing. And this is the right time to 'respond' to this change.

A new world of immense possibilities awaits us.

Signing off for now,
Yours
dibyendu de