Managing change and people in organizations

Two major Stock market crises in India that shook investor confidence.  Organizational Change Management Any Crisis can always expose system  disorder and deficiencies while it can trigger  changes in the system and organizations. Yet regulators fail to learn from disruptive disasters despite huge negative experiences. Such is the case with Indian Stock Market Regulatory System. From fake bankers' receipts to warehouse receipts, from Bull’s manipulation of Bombay stock Exchange or National Stock Exchange, many events happened but no drastic preventive  step seems to have been taken done much with India’s financial control systems but for  few cosmetic changes in reporting and compliance standards Here is how few of these big-time frauds were perpetrated.  Not many fraudsters can boast of inspiring  Bollywood producers to make blockbuster movies  but Harshad Mehta's life inspired many film stories including one called Gafla- which means Fraud-were made on one ma

Is there an appropriate  time to initiate change? When the Company's performance slips  while the market is going up ,quarter after quarter there has to be  always some basic issue that needs to be fixed or improved  .That kind of  change is not something easy to achieve just like obese people who struggle to shed weight or thin people  who try to  gain weight .Organizational change means a well planned and strategised time bound action.This initiative may involve .The change is always involving attitude change of leaders managers and employees. The right time is to evaluate with  change needs assessment . There is a saying " if you cannot see the atom how can you see the galaxy? Employee loyalty is good but people in the organization get into comfort zone  sooner or later if left unchallenged .As  time passes,the process gets  set,and rules are laid out for everyone to follow  and over time they become norms . The culture sets in and the vocabula

Tips  for Asse ssment centres  Enhance Recruitment effectiveness JUL 5 Organisations find it difficult to make error-free judgements while identifying people for senior positions.  DR E J SARMA  writes that assessment centres are very effective in such decision-making processes Let me share with you a funny incident. Recently, a client approached us with an urgent requirement for a particular software skill. We referred three candidates after proper screening. One candidate was put through three rounds of interview. The whole process took almost 15 days after which he was told that he will be put on 15 days trial. The candidate naturally got upset and told the company HR person to get lost. His contention was that even after three rounds of interviews if the company management could not make up their mind, they were not worthy of hiring him . The company is yet to find a suitable person and they might have lost the project also. If we analyse the reason behind this in

New creative Ideas to Wow Customers If the moment of truth is to be managed building a sound service-minded culture is essential . In many organizations, this is not an agenda item for the CEO in management meetings though he might brag about treating people and customer with respect and dignity. I know of at least few CEOs who wanted their startup companies to become Microsoft and when I confronted them with the question "Why then there is no will to compensate like Microsoft? "  After that embarrassing question, I was   stonewalled. When the employees see that the reward and compensation do not meet their perceived contribution, the moment of truth arrives. "Don't care damn" attitude develops and they show it while dealing with customers. Nothing gets done even with an appointment of VP or Director of customer success who is loaded with  firefighting issues. I had seen the staff busy talking to each other while customers were shoplifting in a perfum

Ideas for creating Customer wow Moments of Truth Of late , it has become a fad to create positions like Chief officer Customer success.Those who occupy this position must  actually do some soul searching to find out how many moments of truth their employees create . Recently i toured 9 famous holiday destinations in northern India; stayed in 9 different hotels. Out that 9, only one remained in my memory  for the moments of truth the staff created. The hotel director came along and greeted offered a welcome drink, accompanied the guests to the room , personally checked the room to ensure that everything was in place. The hotel was  at holy city of Rishikesh in India and the hotel was located on the river banks and had a private entrance to the river. They had numbered the floors from 1 to  8 from top to bottom that was unique. The director offered that we could pluck 7 flowers from the garden and offer to Ganga when we go to the river.The hotel, he said offers calm and pr

Tips for Customer Delight What is so common among leaders who ensure service excellence by creating moments of truth? Having observed some business leaders who excel in creating organizations that are visibly customer friendly , I found certain common traits: This is visible and rubs off in other employees They practice customer delight by personally engaging often in creating moments of truth. They not only have a strong vision but they create shared vision with the people.The service mindset must come as shared value.Once people sign on to the value of customer care , moments of truth emerge. They make it point to talk and emphasize service quality at every opportunity with employees and the measure of the success of executives on the report card on moments of truth. They ensure to create customer-friendly service delivery systems They balance high tech and high touch by tempering systems with personal habits.Habits are paramount in ensur

Large scale Crisis in  IT sector -India Frauds are always driven  by abnormal and excessive greed from  individuals in power and that do not seem to be confined to  financial industry controlled by  the r ich  in larger economies but seem to  happen wherever there is opportunity through legal   gap in the system and scope for  making easy  money.  The Satyam scam in IT services sector in India had many parallels to the Enron fraud of the USA.  Satyam fraud was entirely orchestrated by one greedy person with the power as founder and CEO in  collusion with CFO and even the external Audit firm who collaborated in certifying falsified   accounts year after year.  The corrupt government officials were eager as always to fuel the growth  of the company with large value government contracts in exchange for the favors for  own personal  gains. Employees and investors get easily fooled when there are exponential growth  and the stock  prices keep going u

Organization Transformation is slow curative process: How does an ugly caterpillar transform to become a beautiful butterfly? It is all about being single minded and dedicated in mission just as what  a powerfully shared vision can do for the company to transform . Shared vision  converts the general mindset of people from "do the same thing ” to "do a different thing for our Company”. It creates a sense of commonality of purpose , of being part of achieving something purposeful and meaningful . The process is a fulfilling experience for those employees who are  aligned and associated with the end result of the transformation  . It gives coherence to  change  from routine activities. It creates the excitement and can make an ordinary company to be the most preferred and extraordinary company. It enables everyone to work together. It creates a common identity and a sense of purpose. It encourages new ways of thinking and doing . It gives courage and fosters

Organization Transformation is slow curative process: Have you ever wondered as to how a caterpillar transforms to become a butterfly? or the wasp that keeps the worm inside a mud cage and conditions it to become the wasp.Nature teaches us about dedicated management style. It is all about one point and being dedicated to mission.Just as what  a shared vision can do for the company to transform . Shared vision  converts the general mindset of people from "do the same thing ” to "do a different thing for our Company”. It creates a sense of commonality of purpose , of being part of achieving something purposeful and meaningful . The process is a fulfilling experience for those employees who are  aligned and associated with the end result of the transformation  . It gives coherence to  change  from routine activities. It creates excitement and can make an ordinary company to be the most preferred and extraordinary company. It enables everyone to work toget

A global corporate fraud - Enron -India Kenneth Lay and Jeffrey Skilling were in the cockpit and at the helm when Enron collapsed, robbing the jobs of over 20000 people and swallowing life savings of thousands along with it. They were fully aware of every manipulation they did and the consequence of those fraudulent actions. Kenneth Lay helped to create Enron in 1985  as a natural gas provider and presided as it grew into an energy-trading global behemoth.  Enron was another typical capitalist businessman Kenneth Lay’s creation, by merging two natural gas pipeline companies i.e. Inter North & Houston Natural Gas. Enron's main business was in natural gas, electricity,commodities and services. Due to its substantial growth in the demand the company not only became one of the world’s major energy companies and earned the honor by Fortune magazine as “America’s Most Innovative Company” for six consecutive years.  The most innovative company became bankrupt by filing th

Efficiency or Effectiveness -What is your focus as manager?  A group of Software Technical project managers in charge of dealing with the large team was asked about their understanding of the concept of efficiency and effectiveness.As expected almost 90% did come out quickly with the definition of efficiency as Input Output ratio. It is the well-trained engineers' mind and line of thinking but none could come out with a precise definition for effectiveness. One or two who had attended some seminars or read few management books said that effectiveness is about doing right things. They all were responsible for large scale enterprise wide implementation of Change - (software for sales automation) - and were complaining about people not willing to change. We know now they were only emerging from their engineering mindset to drive efficiency. Their philosophy of dealing with people is also about mechanical efficiency. For a change , management there is a need to build new capabi