Two pillars essential to build a Great Organization

Yuga Shino/Reuters

By

Siddhartha Rastogi

You are the business head of your vertical. You are presenting last year’s performance to a group comprising your immediate boss, who is also the CEO of the company, the board of directors and the Chairman of the organization.

You click on the next slide, and guess what, the chart showing the profitability numbers reflects a sharp decline. This is on account of new initiatives taken by you to capture a market share. Most of these were your ideas, which have been conveyed to the CEO.

These situations are very common in the corporate world. What will happen next?

You look in the eyes of your boss who in turn is seeing the reaction of the board. The follow on response from here is known to everyone. You are asked to step out of the boardroom, so that the board and top management can chalk out next steps. You are called back and told that a new assignment has been given to you which encompasses less challenge and is not critical for the organization. In a nutshell you have paid the price for taking a risk and subsequently failing in your venture. You are disgusted and then start applying to the competition, which is happy to absorb and remunerate you with the top bucks as you have learnt everything that you shouldn’t be doing in future.

Let’s rewind the situation a little and imagine, just before the slide comes to the screen, your boss gets up, comes by your side, puts his hand on your shoulder and says out loud, “Good Job.” “We have learnt everything that didn’t work in the market, hence we should now be prepared to target things which will work and capture the market with increased margins.” In the same breath, he mentions that it’s him, i.e. the CEO who suggested taking these ideas forward which didn’t work.

What changed in both the outcomes?

TRUST

Trust that somebody is watching your back whilst you are busy fighting battles for the organization. Somebody is there standing right behind you. You don’t have to worry about progress, about your career; your boss will look after it. Your sole job is to provide the best to clients and in turn the best to the organization and hence the best will inevitably come to you.

If you have to worry about your position, your earnings, your share, your political equation within the company, how will you fight and win wars in an ever changing, cut throat competitive marketplace?

When a soldier is fighting on the front, he takes the bullet for a fellow soldier because he believes his colleague; his comrade in the unit, would have done the same for him.

But does this happen in corporate world?

Generally not and hence good profitable organizations lose an opportunity to become GREAT.

TRUST is the most common human behavior which has existed since Paleolithic times, as one man needed to trust another to protect and safeguard from nature and wild animals. Hence human beings feel emotionally connected and deliver their best for people whom they trust.

The CEO or leader of the organization therefore has the largest role to play as he is responsible for all failures of the company in totality and of individual employees including temporary staff whilst the success is only attributable to the individuals, units or verticals within the organization.

Apart from trust, the second most crucial component to build great organization is PATIENCE.

Patience to build the right processes, patience to develop the right culture, patience to build the right ecosystem, patience to look for longer term profits, patience to build and attract the right Talent.

You perhaps can build the organization quickly in a year or so, and can achieve the profitability targets as well within a 2-3 year timeframe, but can that be sustainable? As you face some headwinds, you would crumble and you would see your partners and key personnel quickly jumping ship.

Let me explain this using example of hiring right talent.

For any organization, it’s paramount to hire the right people. The right people can be brought into the organization by two methods:

• First by nurturing the raw talent which has just finished theoretical aspects of learning and putting them in varied tough situations for them to figure out solutions thereby enlarging their horizons to think and act in divergent situations.

• Second by attracting the right resources from the competition or marketplace, as and when they are available to be hired by your organization. Most high performing, high calibre, high skilled employees are loyal to their employers, as most firms take good care of them. But there are times when these employees get teased or become unhappy due to small incidents, peer to peer confrontation, promotions, appraisals, hikes, perks, etc, and are available to the market for a brief period. Hence attracting them during that period and gaining their confidence can turn tables and prove immensely useful for the organizations and rewarding for the talent.

When a wise man said, “Rome wasn’t built in a day,” he definitely was saying it by experience, which one should learn from.

Siddhartha Rastogi

Siddhartha was born to a learned middle class educated family in Semi Urban India. His father was an extremely honest man who because of his honesty had to pay the price in corporate world. Mother is a determined woman who ensured that children are being well taken care off. After a few years of birth, doctors called Siddhartha, a slow child having flat foot. He would fall more than he could walk. Determined mother ensured all therapies for her son to come out strong to fight the world. Siddhartha joined swimming when he was in 6th standard. Seeing other children of his class, he jumped in 10 feet deep pool and learnt swimming on his own, the very same day.

From that day there was no looking back. He topped his city in 12th and went to score highest in his B school exams. During his profession as banker, he became youngest branch manager of a MNC bank managing their biggest wealth branch in the country. There he found love of his life and got married. His love of his life emerged in the form of his daughter who completely changed him for good.

Siddhartha Rastogi is Director for a boutique Investment bank in India.

Siddhartha is a forward looking thinker & writer who has written a book on decision making. 8 Simple steps to effective decision making.

He writes on various social and current issues via his blog and can also be found on twitter.