Direct-touch switches on the centric system!
By Vivek Sharma
Oh, you are an IIM passout? Great! You are packed in a multinational firm? That sounds really impressive. God bless you! But, are you a leader in the real sense of the term? Ask yourself.
If you can’t find it out. Just ask this from your subordinates. Yes, you are right. They will not say anything in your face and you have no dependable mechanism to know what they say at your back! This itself shows that you have only gained access to a vertical cage where you are supposed to pass down orders from and try to survive on a conditioned, desired or within-the-lines feedback from down under. That is all. You are just like a man on top of the Everest who has almost lost touch with the base and is breathing heavy due to rarity of oxygen there. You are away from the centre of activity which should matter the most to you. You have no access to what is going on down there. Understand it figuratively and literally.
In most of the cases, the verticals are only one-way traffic of communication. The top only sends down orders, commands, whereas the feedback down-up is only a formality. The fact is that the feedback in a vertical setup cannot be given credence to till it comes from those who are attached to the top with yes-yes strings! And of course, you can’t trust even the feed from the general members who are at yes-yes commandos’ ‘finger-point’ to write in the conditioned feedback. You can imagine how credible can be the feedback in such cases! The feedback is nothing but makes a full circle and completes the circuit of activity. It is a must for improvement of the system and the overall growth of an organisation. But, within-the-line feedbacks don’t serve the purpose but the person on top! Those who can give a fair feedback face a new vertical to deal within the vertical. That is of the yes-yes loyalists. They are dangerous for the organisation because they are more loyal to the king than the kingdom!
The top of the vertical is like the blind king Dhritrashtra whose wife Gandhari (top yes-yes loyalist) keeps herself blindfolded in order to please the king . In this scenario, the offsprings, the successive chain of commands, only do what pleases them under the influence of Shakuni—whose main aim is to keep the deserving Pandavas away even if it costs the death of the organisation. A vertical is nothing but the Kaurava form of management where the top is blind and the feedback is conditioned by the Shakunis who keep the Viduras out of job. The Pandava system of management is centric in nature—herein everybody is arranged around the centre Krishna as per his capacity and merit. Arjuna is not senior, but more meritorious and hence forms the nearest orbit around the centre. But, it doesn’t mean he will interfere with the functions of Yudhisthir, Bheem and the rest functional in their respective orbits. They are arranged in a cooperative format wherein each is functionally orbiting around the same centre to reach the final goal. There is no possibility of any collision as each has its own orbit to move around and expand its energy network around the centre. Growth and expansion are the result.
Genesis of Verticals
The reality is that the vertical system of management is just a one-way traffic, where the lowest end is always both the sufferer and the plan executor.
The origins of this system in democratic countries, like ours, can be traced to the military systems followed by the feudal lords of the Mughal and the British empires. Their agenda was entirely focused on procuring land, wealth, produce and human assets in the same order of priority. They used their military setups—carrying a chain of commands— to get these targets achieved. They have been— to procure the land and the wealth first. Later, they further extended it to usurping the produce and the human resources too. It is where this vertical system made its first entry into nascent industrial units in and around our country.
We are unfortunately following the same system despite change having a democratic form of governance, changed work environment which targets more growth and more expansion. But, it is not possible in the vertical system. Wherever you find success, there you shall find the centric system being followed in one form or the other.
Before understanding the pitfalls of the vertical system of management, we must understand what it really is aimed at and how it has retained the ruthlessness of the military ambitions of the yore. They can be defined by three As—acquire, abuse and appropriate. The vertical systems worked from the 12th and 13th centuries till 16th and 18th centuries effectively as the process of acquiring was delayed due to inbuilt resistance to the system by the landlords, landowners and the kings. Verticals cannot work if there is no actionable intel for it to create more verticals of victory through accession and usurpation—some organisations are still following the feudal legacy and they may not last long in the overall growth scenario. However, as the time passed by, the verticals turned into towers of victory with yes-yes lobbies giving more questionable than actionable feedback to the top—the owners during that time. This created a doubt matrix along the line of the verticals where the second-in-command either turned the top redundant or toppled it by way of regrouping a majority of yes-yes loyalists against it and isolating it within the system. All historical events can be understood as the fallout of the falling and rising verticals. But, the some growing industrial units and organisations retained the system as the backbone to keep themselves stand tall structurally. The main reason for success in some such cases had been that these units continued to follow the three As and effectively converted the produce and human resources into their assets—wealth gain in the final analysis.
However, the triple A majorly worked through suppression of workers and executors buried at the bottom of the vertical. This gave birth to a systematic rebellion against the top. The greedy top had no options but to adjust to the counterbalance created by rising rebellion for rights by the bottom. This gave rise to the trade unions which made the lower parts of the vertical more secured and powerful.
This was like tying the coconut tree top with a strong string and bending it to the bottom till a vertical circle was created. But, after some time, the vertical began to turn bottom heavy. This resulted in the collapse of the system as the workers gathered their force only to pull the top down! In response to this downward pull, the organisations went through a massive overhaul severing the tightrope knot holding them bent to the bottom. It worked and gave a new lease of life to the vertical which now had many columns topped with small circles. Each column in the vertical had functionally different departments headed by a ring of of executors. The main aim was to get things done through the bottom and keep the top (the owners) in loop. These little rings of executors are collectively called the corporate. This system is in vogue today. It has kept many vertical units afloat by the buoyancy of its top circularity! That is ok. A majority of corporate are flying high in the air and fast losing touch with the ground as they don’t have an effective feedback mechanism which keeps them linked to the heads, hands and feet that really make it work. Some organisations have identified this weakness and given way to HRs to keep the heads, hands and feet together. But, the role of HR is doubtful too. It is afflicted with the same yes-yes disease which clouds their objectivity and fails to convey the real feedback to the top.
Some corporates hire independent agencies as feedback machines to address objectity. But, again, these units too are a vertical and hence the motives to please and prove are inherent in them too.
So we are experimenting with various add-on systems to keep the verticals alive. But, the reality is no organisation can work ideally without adopting to the centric system of management.
How to Make Switch
Demolishing verticals is not only cost-intensive but also cumbersome. It is like bringing down a tower and raising a centric structure in its place all over again. The cost of demolition and the cost of new construction shall be quite a blow to the organisation. But, there is still a way to get this done. Introduce the centric system at the bottom where the real worker works. The top, the owner should be the centre of this circle. The person with true leadership qualities should be placed in the first orbit around the owners. There should be live 24x7 interaction between the workers and the owners. This approach is called the direct-touch feedback mechanism. He should interact with the workers himself to know and address the ground challenges. I tell you this will help in achieving the vision of growth, expansion and profit in reality. The direct-touch will keep the owner know the strength of his workers and get the right feedback to get things done. However, the only condition is to keep each worker functionally orbited to avoid collisions.
How to Introduce It
Let us take the example of a school or a college. What is the basic functional strength of a school? Teachers and students. Since a school is an eduction provider. Teachers are the basic functional unit of a school. Teachers can be functionally orbited subjectwise. The direct touch with teachers shall give the owner a clear picture of what to do. In the modern setups, the school owner can use online conferencing system to have a direct touch with the teachers. This will solve 90 % of the functional problems and give a 100% view of the future direction. The leader should always be centrally oriented in order to maintain direct touch with his/her basic functionaries. However, the owner will have to consciously avoid raising any vertical structure. Merit should send a person to the centre not on top of the vertical. A leader works and makes others work also.
According to an informal survey, school principals do not teach but indulge in checks and balances. The school can even run without them. It is not to suggest that they be thrown out. They can be creatively used in the teaching setup. They should be asked to teach by using the experience of their teaching. There is already one manager to manage school affairs. A principal is basically a teacher. There are multiple ways to engage principal teachers in raising education standards through them.
Qualities of Leader
Who is the leader? The person who leads others by work and not by words. He should be there in the middle of the activity and not away from it. He should be like the sun which shines on all by shining itself in the same work format.
According to Krishna, a true leader should be
सर्वभूतस्थम् आत्मानम् सर्वभूतानि च आत्मनि। ईक्षते योगयुक्तात्मा सर्वत्र समदर्शनः।।
He should be established right at the centre (सर्वभूतस्थम् आत्मानम्) and interactively engaged in the work with all as if all the team members are in him and he is in them (सर्वभूतानि च आत्मनि). The person with such a vision and conduct is always the combining force ( ईक्षते योगयुक्तात्मा ) everywhere (सर्वत्र) and doesn’t have biases (समदर्शनः).
The person who has such an attitude can alone be at the centre and hence a true leader. Checkpoints.
- Has the person got excellent work skills?
- Is he interactively engaged in the work with all as if all the team members are in him and he is in them?
- Is he is the combining force without a bias?
If you find such a person, never let him go! He is the one your organisation needs. So get set and go centric!