The Curious Case of ‘Outliers’ & the Pursuit of Excellence – I

 
Having your flight delayed by a couple of hours can ‘sometimes’ truly be a blessing in disguise. A couple of weeks ago, on my way back home after vacations and when faced with this predicament, I did what I usually don’t do to counter these kind of situations – buy a book!

Those of you who know me are well aware that I usually do not buy books, for the simple reason that most of the times it’s just skim reading, going through the book (fiction/ non-fiction/ other classifications out there in the universe) and taking away 2-3 key concepts that stay with me. I might return to revisit a few concepts now and then, but am not exactly in love with the idea of ‘rereading’ books.

To cut a long-story short, I managed my way into the inhouse (or is it in-airport?!) bookstore, and the first book that caught my eye also happened to be the one I bought – The Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell.  It had been recommended a few times on some LinkedIn forums and by some of my peers; plus having read Malcolm’s earlier work ‘The Tipping Point’ in 2011, it seemed like a good enough choice.

The brilliant book that Outliers is, when one starts thinking of the theories given therein,  it opens up a world of possibilities in terms of their applications to the real world. Taking forward some of the learning, in this post I intend to share what most people know works beautifully in teams, but never knew why – Having a flat organization structure and the payoffs of being approachable.

The Power Distance Index (PDI)

 
So what would your reaction be if Malcolm Gladwell told you that there was a ‘direct’ correlation between the number of plane crashes and the place from where the pilots belonged. Sounds crazy right? Wrong. Read more on this by clicking here.

A section of Outliers builds on the concept of the ‘Power Distance Index’ (PDI) which is an interesting theory (amongst the 6 Dimensions of national culture) put forth by Geert Hofstede, and which looks at how much a culture values hierarchical relationships and how individuals within that culture interact with authority. The implications of PDI when applied to plane crashes are powerful enough to make you stop reading midway and think as to how this augurs for the different businesses across the globe.

Getting the best from others: Where does one start? – II (The Workforce ‘Three Quadrant Quandary’)

 
Almost a year back I had written a post on “Getting the best from your team: Where does one start? – I” where I had explored a couple of ideas that a startup had applied towards building a great motivated team.

The year 2011 has been a great one in terms of meeting different people and getting to learn a lot via interaction as well as via plain ol’ observation. Just a couple of weeks back, whilst I had the fabulous opportunity to interact with Tan Yinglan, and we all were in Bengaluru along with a colleague’s friends from the city, the banter drifted to the topic of performance appraisals at a well known global IT firm – easier said than done!

During the 5 minutes or so that the group was discussing the general concerns of people & performance in huge organizations, my mind drifted back to something I had learned during the first 6 months of my work life, and which I have now fondly named “The Workforce ‘Three Quadrant Quandary’.”
 

The Workforce ‘Three Quadrant Quandary’

 
This started out as a funny concept which I observed whilst I had just started working right out of college, but one which has started making more and more sense over the years. Whilst it is ‘relatively easier’ to gauge and manage people strengths and weaknesses when working in smaller organizations, it becomes more and more complex as the organization scales up; more so when we start thinking of organizations where we have 500-1000+ employees (we have a good number of firms flaunting these kind of numbers in their workforce).

In an organization, people can generally be classified under the following quadrants:

For ease of understanding, +1 indicates a positive display of the characteristic (Knowhow/ Showhow) whereas 0 denotes a lack of the same.

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Quad I: +1 Knowhow, +1 Showhow

These are the visible S.T.A.R.S. in your organization. They know the work, and (a) they are smart enough to let others know about their genuine efforts or (b) they are lucky enough to be recognized for their genuine efforts.

These are the ones who will keep taking your organization to the next level(s) as long as you keep providing them with right opportunities that help them grow, and which gives them a sense of achievement. Work on them, groom them for the next level (as they become intrapreneurs)… and needless to say, please make it a point to make sure you put in your efforts to retain them!

‘Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid’ meets ‘Buzz Marketing’

 
Now this is something that I had tried last year, while working with the team at the Social Org ‘Shades of Happiness‘. It was just some time before the monsoon, and the team at SoH had come up with the idea to conduct a Wellness Camp in the slums nearing St. Columba’s School, Ashoka Place.

With the dates decided, we set out looking for Corporate to partner with, and as to how we could plan and execute the Wellness camp idea in the best possible manner.

A couple of mails down the line, we had the good fortune of having a leading Global brand partner us for the camp. The next step being to get the actual beneficiaries to come forward and get the best out of the free check-ups, seemed easy enough.

This was until I asked Ashish, one of the Founding members of SoH, as to how many families we could expect at the Wellness camp.

Ashish told me that from his past experience, in an area of 200 plus families, we could expect some “30 odd families” to turn up for the camp! Now if you do the math, this was like a success rate (or whatever) of just over 10%, ‘far too less’ from what was actually out there, and which could be tapped.

He further added that most of them would rather stay in their rooms and watch TV, or sleep in the afternoon, in fact anything but attend something as boring and mundane such as a Wellness Camp.

For once, I did wish we had a pout-enhanced celebrity to endorse our now unglamorous venture! Nonetheless, this set me thinking as to how we could get more people to get out of their houses and actually make them come for the camp.

Around the same time,  I was reading this book on Buzz Marketing (‘The Anatomy of Buzz‘ by Emanuel Rosen) and getting wowed by the entire word-of-mouth marketing thingy. Now its one thing to read about all that cool jazz as to how word-of-mouth marketing works, and it’s a totally different thing altogether to think of applying what you ‘think’ you have picked up, and also hope to get it right the very first time… !

‘(Kill) Joy factor’: We had planned for the Wellness Camp within a couple of weeks.

The Idea

I realized that just going to the slums and announcing that we were planning to have a Wellness Camp coming Sunday would not exactly get us the results in return for our efforts. Most folks, as rightly pointed out by Ashish, would actually love to spend their time sleeping, watching a movie etc on a lazy Sunday afternoon (You and me being no different!).

I also realized that when we give something away for free, the object does not really have any value to it… that is… till you attach a virtual price tag to it.

For e.g. You buy a local Webcam and you get a pair of Bose noise-cancelling headphones free with it. (This, my friends, is what you would call a ‘Hypothetical’ situation); O.K. … let’s make it more real, say, you buy a local Webcam and you get a pair of local headphones free with the deal.

Now, I know you really don’t care for those free headphones… unless:

Getting the best from your team: Where does one start? – I

 
One thing that I have come to realize over time is that, the team, or as I would put it, ‘The Human Capital’, plays a major part in any Organization’s success. This holds for the Corporate Powerhouse managing its many businesses under one roof,  as much as it does for the StartUp dreaming of becoming the next Corporate Powerhouse.

This, of course, brings to mind the question: How does one make the best of what one’s team has to offer?

Those who have read Jack Welch on people management might straight away utter 3 words in reverence: ‘Reward’, ‘Recognition’ and ‘Training’.

But is that all there really is to managing people, or is there more to explore when you happen to work with teams?

I have tried applying Jack’s principles whenever working with people, and found them to be quite effective… BUT… I have also realized that, as what I had been taught in Chemistry a good 7-8 years back, exceptions to the rule exist just as well.

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Imagine this scenario, where I was working closely with a Colleague on a tight deadline:

It’s night 2:30 AM, the deliverable has to be sent in by morning; we have already exchanged quite a few drafts between us, and my colleague comes back to me and says: “Monce, I think we can improve on this just this much more”. You realize he is serious. You know that what he suggests make sense, and will add that ‘bit’ more value to the deliverable. You also realize that its one of those rare moments when you want to hug and shoot this guy at the same time!

The best part: its not just him alone; but his entire team is up and working ‘actively’ at this time of the night, and they are all in it together. Made me wonder how he manages his team and keeps them up and motivated to put in their best, all the while? This keeping in mind that it’s already Sunday morning now and we have been at work straight for the past 17 odd hours or so (excluding the days that were behind us)!

A few days later, I did get around to asking him and his partner as to how they managed their Human Capital. Theirs is a StartUp they founded in 2009.

I was of the impression that, as a StartUp, they could definitely not be paying their team salaries at par with the MNCs and bigger firms. Turns out they were doing exactly that… and then some more!

IIT to remove ceiling fans to curb suicides!!

Tripped on this article today morning: IIT to remove ceiling fans to curb suicides… and yes, it got me thinking for all the wrong reasons!The prominent thought on my mind was not about the proposed solution but whether the ‘right’ issue was being addressed at all?

Curb the cause, not just the how!

I believe that they should think of nipping the problem right at the roots.

Treat the causes of depression by building more approachable counselling points – helpful senior students who can be reached etc. (Counsellors, Faculty might come across as a bit intimidating).
Build myths, legends of alumni/ current senior students who scored low at first, but went on to do well later in studies and in life; Positive reinforcements that they were good enough to crack the damn entrance exam etc.

Spreading such stories can be done at the College Canteens, Mess, Other joints; where the ‘Cooler’ Faculty & Students hang out.

I have always observed that when you make something a life-and-death issue, it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy and the pressure increases… and yes, the reverse holds just as true!

A major part boils down to creating an environment where there might be issues, but not grave enough to give suicide a thought.
* and having read ‘ The Tipping Point – Malcolm Gladwell’ about suicides… it might be even counter-productive to focus on suicides than working on how to create a less stressful environment… ! *
p.s.: Not really important at the end of it all, but if am not wrong, pedestal fans cost more than the ceiling fans… !

Cheers, Monce