Skip to main content

A question of culture

When you think of a team or a company culture what comes to mind?

One part of the culture is how the company treats hierarchy. Now, in these days of start ups - and this has been so since American tech culture came to India - on paper there is no hierarchy. Gone are the days, when people had to address their superiors as 'Sir' or 'Sahab'. Most companies operate on a first name basis. And by and large, companies also have an open door culture. Lets call this level 1. Most companies are well beyond this level.

However, the breakdown of hierarchy does not stop there. In most places, people find it difficult to say no to their bosses. Which is why the jargon - HIPPO is so prevalent. HIPPO stands for HIghly Paid Persons Opinion. The HIPPO is the new elephant in the room. Lets call this Level 2. In my experience, in most companies, it is fairly ok to question the boss, though the hippo may win by default.

The third aspect where hierarchy shows up, ever so often, is in the day to day interactions. As a manager, how does she run the team? Is it still industrial style - where the manager resorts to 'tell' or is it more of a structure where the manager 'asks', 'gets her team to think', 'gives and receives feedback'. This in my opinion is a level 3 - which is the hardest to crack.

Far too many people (both managers and subordinates) still live with the mindset of the industrial age role of a manager. Back then in the factory age, the boss knew everything - the boss was expected to tell and the staff was expected to follow. Not so today. Where every one of your hires is perfectly capable of thinking for himself.

And yet, many managers 'tell' their subordinates what to do rather than 'ask' what they think about it...

In the small sample size we have seen, managers rarely use 'ask' to take the thinking of their teams forward. If it all 'ask' is used, it is used more as an investigation/interrogation than as a solution focused forward moving tool.

An 'Ask' means, I honour your intelligence. An 'Ask' means, I am willing to listen to your answer. An 'Ask' means, there is no hierarchy and from then on our ideas win, not position.

What if people employed 'ask'? What effect would that have on the culture of the company?

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

No conferences

Decided not to attend any conferences this year. Atleast not the typical ones I have often ranted about here. Will be both choosy and intentional about which ones to attend.  The ones to attend are the ones put up by practitioners of a craft. The rest is marketing one way or other. 

And the unconference happened

 Most conferences have an agenda. No, not the stated agenda, but an agenda of marketing, airtime to sponsors, ensuring the past and future customers are invited, of ensuring that the "stars" of the industry are invited and attention showered of them. All in all it is a your scratch my back, I scratch your back syndrome. Some of these become cliques and claques and therefore the real point behind a conference is lost. And then there is the unconference - organised and run by the alumni of the ISABS ODCP program. And as the name suggests, this is truly an un-conference organised by the alumni, for the alumni. No funders - except the alumni themselves. No sponsors. Just the team.  I havent seen a more tastefully organised conference (yes, its an unconference).  To begin with - the location - not a typical star hotel, but an outdoorsy place. The food - simple. The welcome - personal. It was like a homecoming. The setting was warm and welcoming. It was a smaller conference. Ju...

The power of jotting down ideas

 Long long ago, I always used to carry a small letterpad with me. To jot down ideas that might occur. Over the years, it has changed from a notepad to evernote to google keep, but the power of jotting down ideas is immense.  Small ideas go into keep.  Anything to be quickly typed goes into whatsapp as a self message.  Bigger or better formed ideas go into Google docs A few are still written, but I manage to copy them into a digital format sooner rather than later.  But the power of jotting down is immense. My google keep is an encyclopedia of ideas - most of which may never get implemented.