Making Authorities Act

The other day there was a team from the Netherlands who had come to my B-School. They were talking about social responsibility and how they are helping a small town in Orissa to build a school. The team leader was a 55 year old ex-industrialist who is now into education. He was sounding quite pompous about his efforts. Afterwards during the lunch, he was cursing the Indian bureaucracy for the speed or rather the lack of it at which any legitimate paper work moves in India… He was mimicking the laid back attitudes of the babus and the lack of discipline. He commented, “It’s easier to poke life into a dead man, than making your officials work.”

Now, to be very honest I would have loved to bash the living day lights out of the gentleman and the students, who were nastier in their comments, but the rational me went prodding about it. Wasn’t what he said true? Don’t we encounter it everyday? Hasn’t it got so engrained in the system that we take it as a part of life? What makes these organizations & the employees so weak that they refrain from acting on which is simply their job? What could the governing body do to correct it?

I feel that there is a need of a strong sense of accountability for the jobs that they do. For that, either the employees need to be truly driven about their work or they need be made aware of the fact that his work is in a position to be tracked back to him. So any deviations to the standard delivered would be credited to him- in form of a perk or a penalty.

Secondly the tasks of these employees should be measurable in tangibles. The tangible can be in terms of any variable, the best and the apt one being- Time. And these two factors of Time (or any other relevant variable) and Accountability should be directly related to their compensation and rewards.

Time & Measurability: The 2 factors to make authorities act
In a research conducted in 70 nations, amongst working professionals, it was accepted that time spent for a project is a just and fair way of compensation. Also time is viewed as today’s currency; hence it’s only fair to make such variables as a crucial parameter to decide compensation. For e.g.: In the passport office, the cycle time can be measured from the submission of all valid documents to the issue of the passport. A standard can be set, and different area offices should be rewarded according to their overall performances on average cycle time and compliance with the standard. This system can be duplicated in any office with high turnaround time. Bonuses for these people shouldn’t come as mandatory bakshees during Diwali, but as perks for effective work delivery. This will not only increase efficiency, but also provide the employee or the teams to make extra money.

Government jobs boast about job security. It’s quite a noble thought- You take care of your employees and they’ll take care of you. But doesn’t that give the employees a free hand to decide what priority? They know that they would not lose their job for under-performance. Defaulted cases should be tracked back to concerned people and action should be taken against them- either in terms of a warning or a memo. This would make the employees believe that the management means business.

The objective of having these 2 parameters directly connected to the salary that they are paid leads to an understanding that there are no free lunches- What you sow is what you reap. How his performance determines what he takes home- Its sort if a Marxist theory in a capitalist format. For India to flourish & fast, its system and its bureaucracy needs to find its way, and install formats of working that can’t be breached. Today it’s a slow moving, inefficient step mother of the larger goal of holistic development. There is a need for people who could carry out this restructuring & provide a six sigma performance. Let government offices go to B-Schools and recruit professionals to make this performance management system work for them. Because it’s only if they put systems into place, attach tangibility to what they dispense, will they end up delivering world class service even at a governmental level…

So that the next time, none of us have to sit across a non-Indian and listen to how brittle our system is.

Harikrishnan Pillai
harikrishnan.pillai@gmail.com

Renaissance of the Indian youth

It took a movie like Rang De Basanti to tell the youth of India that its time to rise up and voice their opinion. Though the movie propagated an extremist mindset, it gave the youth a realization: of a voice that now needs to be heard. It gave them a sense of belonging to the homeland. Then followed what I call the “Renaissance of the Indian youth”, when they rose and fought for causes that might not even have affected them personally- like the Jessica Lal case. Or the one’s that did- like the Anti-reservation rally. The effectiveness of these movements can be debated on, but the exciting thought is that the youth of India today is gaining the popularity of a Vectored Individual- potential with a sense of direction.

The reverse brain-drain might be a testimony to it, or the fact the IIM graduates backed out of placement process to be social entrepreneurs. There was a time, when student politics or youth involvement meant nothing but a few odd strikes in “politically enlightened” states like Kerala. Today, IIT alumni have come together to start a new political party, NRIs have floated companies to fund new ventures by young entrepreneurs in India, the state governments are thinking of starting courses in politics & governance (some universities like the DU already have them). These are nothing but an indication that the thought process of the Indian youth has experienced a paradigm shift, and the system is merely reacting to it.

So what has caused this? Is it that today’s youth finds a mentor in business leader turned philanthropist like Narayan Murthy? Or it that he sees a bright future with the country being led by a scientist & two economists. Is it the figures of a soon to be 10% GDP, the booming services sector, the New Age Business Imperialism displayed by the likes of LN Mittal, which he reads in the news everyday? Is it because he sees no need to go to a foreign land to create wealth, because he is witnessing the whole world shifting base to India?

How do we sustain this dream run? Or is it a dream run at all? How does all this prosperity explain the fact that 83% of households in Orissa still don’t have an electricity connection? (Source: NCAER). How does it explain the alleged Maoist contribution in the situation in Nandigram, which is stalling the work of Tata’s prestigious one lakh car? One-fifth of India’s population still suffers from chronic hunger. The irony is best captured by what noted economist & Nobel Laureate Amartya Sen said, “The vision of India can’t be one that is half California & half Sub-Saharan Africa.”

There is still a huge scope for improvement. And this understanding I believe is creating a sense of ownership and responsibility in the minds of the Indian youth. Today it’s not the era of community service but that of social entrepreneurship, or the liaison of business and philanthropy. There is prospect of being self-less and standing up for a cause… or the possibility of adding business sense to it. Whatever it is… the end result is prosperity & a sense of independence. Something which I believe we snatched from the Britishers & gave away to our sense of apathy towards community welfare.

Let’s rise up…. It’s never too late!

Harikrishnan Pillai
harikrishnan.pillai@gmail.com