Footprints on the Mountainside

Recently, I helped conduct a training programme aimed at looking at existing entrepreneurship and building on it in a team of managers in a leading bank. What struck me was the extreme efficiency of the team. They were performing at peak, yet there was little excitement in the group.

As the programme evolved, and we looked at different ways of understanding the preferences and choices of the team, it became increasingly clear that there were dreams and highly charged emotions bottled up in the group. Their perception of their working boundaries was of one that didn’t allow for mistakes, and their mode of operations was SAFE. While thier high efficiency ensured sustained performance, the monotony was literally strangling the life-giving forces in this vertical.

An incredible point in this programme came toward the end, where one of their seniors visited briefly, and during one of his conversations with the group, put it bluntly - “business is about going with your gut. There aren’t always logical explanations and guarantees. Sometimes you do things because you want to do them.”

Looking at this guy as he spoke was an experience of freshness, lightness and excitement about the work. There was none of the heavy air of confinement and no second-guesses about results. Just a happy acceptance of sheer temptation of certain exciting possibilities and a willingness to invest image and effort into making them work.

Unsaid at that time, I registered what I found different about this happy man who actually had far more responsibilities than the others - this was a businessman, not a manager.

I extend this philosophy to all I do in my life - if it doesn’t excite me, my investment of effort is not going to satisfy me, no matter what it is. Some things I may do out of necessity, but it is important not to lose track of priorities - it is the excitement where my focus needs to be.

When I work with small businesses, it is one of the greatest challenges to find such engagement. The fear of failure suffocates and overcomes all the charm of getting into it in the first place. The key is to know that failure will happen, but it is the opportunity that we need to keep our sights on.

Ownership isn’t only about owning responsibility and protecting. Ownership is also the commitment to take things ahead because it is the owner’s dream.

There seems to be an impression floating around in companies that serious training happens indoors, and outbounds are for having fun.

While ther is nothing wrong with having fun in the outdoors, I find it disturbing to see such programmes called training programmes.

Somewhere, I find that this reinforces an unconscious desire in participants to resist change and is harmful for the overall learning environment of the organization. Most of the outbound training enquiries I get focus on the “activities”. The more exciting, the better, the more exotic, the more adventurous, the more…. something-or-the-other. Pursuit of adventure is fabulous. I make money from it. But why wrap it up as a self-development programme or management training?

From a very simple angle, you get to save money from the trainer’s fees as well as training session time to invest fully into the desired adventure experience. From a deeper angle, there is no pretense - there is a certain honesty to going after what is really desired.

I suspect some of this is about “We have a training budget….” as an HR professional had candidly explained to me. Stated almost directly in that conversation was the objective that they wish to utilize the training budget so that it doesn’t get cut down, but they really don’t have any training in mind at the moment.

What I find telling in this is the inability to see beyond fixed concepts. This is a rigidity in perspective that is only manifesting itself with me in this way in the first fifteen minutes of conversation. What is this rigidity doing everyday, to the person, to the people who are influenced by their choices and to the organization?

How do I see this rigidity? I see it when an entire document about training is read and the important issues for discussion are about travel, accommodation, activities and food. I see it when outbound training becomes a way of organizing an outing under training budgets. I see it when there isn’t the least curiosity about if an outbound training programme is a new service called thus to provide that utility of training budget, or if it really has any value to deliver.

Of course, not all companies are like that. I have conducted programmes where participants on the outbound actually needed to be told to lighten up and go with the flow, because they were so focussed on learning, that they were almost unable to “be”.

And I have found the perfect participants as well - people who had arrived with full knowledge that they were out on training, and knew that they would be spending time in the outdoors and were fine with seeing what happened with the flow.

Why do I call these the perfect participants? Because they are utilizing their value for money, because they are investing their time actively and because it brings me a glow of pride in being able to work with them, to see their transformations and celebrate being a part of it. It brings me a high to see the changes being wrought still alive in participants when I meet them on some future programme….

It brings me the joy of having companions along on a journey of discovery, and I find few things that are headier than that.

I came across a discussion on how to “deal with” a woman who wears revealing clothes in an office with no stated dress code.

The discussion runs into some 24 pages with not a single HR professional seeing the woman as anything less than a problem to be dealt with and lengthy ways of dealing with it ranging from firing her to emailing a dress code to all staff, etc.

What I see happening, is that the entire community needs to immediately get this woman into the “acceptable” (for them) one way or the other. Few people bothered to ask if this woman is indeed productive, collaborative and otherwise functional.

Not a single person expressed acceptance for this girl.

If this is the state of HR, how to we expect employees to respect women beyond their looks?

I see an unconscious process in this community, which I suspect is also happening in our society. People just can’t get over their own jealousies or lust when faced with an attractive person to see the person as a whole. Somehow, they need to drag that person to an “ordinary” level. What that person feels doesn’t matter, because they are not even looking at her feelings here.

Whatever happened to HR being available for all employees and not just the ones they choose to support? If the position is to be used as ammunition to defend what we like and attack what we don’t, it is no surprise that one of the members stated “But some time HR have to be rude , thats a reason why 75 % employee are
not happy with their HR [ Because we force them to behave in a
particular way ].”

Like I posted there, no one HAS TO be rude. Rudeness happens on its own, when we stop caring about and respecting the person we are speaking with.

People are not idiots. They can sense when a person doesn’t care about them, but still disapproves of them and has rules they should obey. Really, do you like people who don’t care about you, but know what is right for you?

The sad part of this is that it seems to be an accepted part of being HR. How can an HR department be functional, if the H of it doesn’t like them? Yet, advice seems to be that to not worry about being rude and “just deal with the woman”.

I’d like to share my posts there over here:

Hi,

Even though your organization has no stated norms about clothes, from
your post, there seems to be an unsaid norm about the same, or you (and
others) wouldn’t be bothered by what she wears.

No one in the office (including that girl) is fool enough to believe
that an email sent to all on this subject really applies to all, if
that new girl is such a sensation, and it would only serve as a public
reprimand that came out of the blue, and thus humiliating for her.
Plus, if you mean it for her, why pretend its for all?

If I were in your place, I would go about things like thus.

First, I would meet with the girl privately. I would explain the dilemma I was caught in. On one hand, I respect her individuality and choice to wear whatever she thinks she should. On the other hand, as a person in HR, facilitating an atmosphere that’s conducive to harmony is my responsibility.

I would explain how I see the impact of her attire (without allocating ANY blame ANYWHERE):

• Women
  staff show discomfort in her presence - this could and probably IS
  leading to her being looked upon with envy or disapproval, and will
  impact her working relationships in the office and impact productivity
  negatively.
• Men seem to be attracted. This could have an
  impact in terms of being seen as too inviting by the opposite gender
  and thus not taken seriously, which would again impact performance when
  it came to the value of her contributions - would men be considering
  her capability (would they even notice it amid the decoration)?

This
would lead to working interactions based on a stereotype of her that
has nothing to do with how she actually works. That troubles me, both
for her, as well as the well being of us as a group. On a
personal level, I have little experience, and thus comfort with such
clothes, and I find it a little awkward (feel shy) and can’t get over
them to see her, as a whole person, which I would like to.

I would ask her for help on this matter, as I would prefer it for
myself, for her and the group if personal clothing wouldn’t be a matter
for an official rule to be laid down.

Then, if she agrees to help, I would simply trust her, and see what
happens for the next week or so. If she doesn’t agree, OR if she
doesn’t present herself suitably, I would call a staff meeting and
share that I had observed that there was an unsaid norm about clothes,
though there was none officially, and would explain how I see the
situation currently.

I would explain my bottom line that we keep the norm, or it goes, I
couldn’t care less, but we make it clear what happens to it. So either
we throw away the norm, in which case I expect the members of the staff
to quit flaunting either their disapproval, or their drooling, or we could state it clearly and define what constituted appropriate clothing which everyone would be expected to follow.

They KEY DIFFICULTY in this issue is not dealing with the girl, but
keeping our own value judgments away from our facilitation of the
situation. As an authority role, we are expected to be available to all, not just the ones on whose “side” we are. I say this specifically, because I sensed you being on the “side” of the women.

The clothes are the woman’s responsibility, but the responses and reactions belong to all and not just her.

I am very concerned at the state of HR in
our community, where judgments are passed so easily, and there is no
sensitivity for the girl.

I believe that as HR, we are available to all people and not just the ones we choose to support and attack the ones we don’t.

With recommendations of:

• “Shock
  treatment” - are we not laying a role model for women to be looked as
  objects in a derogatory manner? And why shouldn’t the girl sue you for
  those comments - just because you’re in the mood to play Freud?
• By
  laying down rules for the entire staff, are we not imposing our sense
  of “right and wrong” on them? What makes us so certain that everyone
  indeed has an issue with what we see an issue with?
• How many
  people here have exhibited understanding and enabling support for the
  girl? Is she not a member of the staff that you provide an HR function
  to?

Sensitivity and caring seems to be a value long lost
among members in their superiority and judgments on who is right and
wrong and power plays on how they should be “dealt with”

Some pages back Shaival hit the nail on the head, without really understanding what she said “But
some time HR have to be rude , thats a reason why 75 % employee are not
happy with their HR [ Because we force them to behave in a particular
way ].”

No one has to be rude. We become rude when we stop caring about the
person we are speaking with. Even if employees can’t state it as
clearly as this, they can sense it, and really, who likes someone who
doesn’t respect them? Do you? Do you like someone who doesn’t really
care about you, but claims to know what is best for you and then goes
ahead and imposes it on you? If 75% employees are not happy with their
HR, isn’t it high time HR used this feedback to re-create themselves to
be more functional?

I’m sorry to say that I am utterly disgusted.