Recognising Value in a Services Economy

Services are a many splendored thing. The more you standardize, the less it can dazzle you. The more you make common, the more you find it predictable and in your control as producer. Mac Donald’s is one example of standard mascots, colours, the logo et al. So also is Café Coffee day today.

The reason I write this today is this – Some brands differentiate to market a service for a premium that the client cannot justify. In fact, several brands tend to latch on like in a lobby to fetch that premium with no semblance of reliability or accuracy with the supposed standard of service.

There have been waves of assessment for example, that were sold as certification in the differentiation effort. The PCMM or People Capability Maturity Model from Carnegie Mellon was one such. Assessors for the Software Engineering Institute know for the most part that they assess to a scheme of practices and goals, seeking consistency between documents of intent – policies and procedures and documents of practice – of reviews and measurements.   There is not even an attempt to check for the validity of terms on these documents. E.g. the word competency could mean a technical skill in one organisation and a behavioural outcome in another and the Assessor will give no guarantee for the internal consistency of the term for the assessment he or she is given responsibility for! They would give sublime rationalisations to the effect that they rather focus on the spirit of the assessment than the content of the effort of the assessee.

Of late, several such apparent ‘standards’ pass commercial decision points with poor criteria for discernment. A floor effect is reached, when there are a plethora of firms that brand their commercially paid ‘certifications’. ISO for Quality is one such. Legally mandated compliances are of course in service of a different master.

Service is valued when it is authentic, spontaneously delivered and available when demanded.

Would you care for a bank office whose internal walls contain hoardings of minimum service time for various service requests are violated ad nauseam? At times, you can see through the inconvenient compromise that management and unions arrive at to take away from their own inventiveness and service capability, even as you stand in line for tasting their stated predictability.

Would you like to pay premia for culturally irrelevant norms, that you feel are imposed, merely because they sold the feature, even before the service is consumed?

How about an ICA or ICF credentialed coach, when there is no legal requirement in your own country to license coaches for your development? Even without a GATT regime for such services, several who need coaching will be deprived of service merely because the service is not affordable. It is like medical bills that get inflated to amortize costs of equipment that have only a remote influence on the patient’s survival.

And then there is the case for OD certification, when even in the lands of their origin, there is no eligibility criterion for professional qualifications to practice OD. In my experience, many Indian firms may fail to appoint Personnel Officers in line with the factories Act, 1948, despite the hundreds of courses recognised by the government for this purpose.

In order to standardise delivery, I have seen ‘trainers’ of sales, service and leadership behaviors, recite the same joke, at the precise calendar time of the day, as if there were no differences between their circadian rhythms or neural structures.  You can imagine how they relate to their customers, assuming that every customer was Henry Ford’s prototype of the Model T purchaser. Service providers continue to have their cognitive flaws when taking lessons from analogies, metaphors, and unrelated service sectors.

My concern here is as you may have guessed by now. How can we enable buyers to take decisions in their context without feeling cheated before or after they pay for their services?  Such points of mention may actually provide for derivative lessons which can make for enjoyment of benefits that were not even thought of before you decided to buy a service. E.g. Specifying the value for validity in Assessment Centers may be one thing in research, but another in experiencing it. Linking Assessment Centers with relevant talent management processes over relevant time periods goes with the purchasing decision. If you did not buy it for predictive validity, why pay so much? Here are some guidelines you may like for decisions.

1.       Conserve Resources : In a world that needs to make more from the little we have, we have only our brains to separate value from non-value. Beware of opportunists who take more from you than you need to pay. Conserve your financial resources, and pay for what is essential. E.g. There is no need to pander to ‘business class’ travel or ‘chopper-transfers’ merely to manage your service provider’s comfort. Also, when paying for time, factor overall time of solutioning for which you make investment and not merely by rate of consulting fees per day, for example. There is no point in negotiating fees for an employee survey per employee response, for example, if the outcomes from analysis are weeks and months away from the last response!

2.       Ecologically Sound : While at first this may be seen as a mention in aid of sustainable eco-systems, I refer here the effect of intention. When you buy, screen for the seller’s intention. If it harms people, even in a non-tactile, non-contractual way, assert your value for a non-threatening service. This ecological soundness is about well being of people with whom the buyer interacts most with. It is about avoiding willful or designed damage as collateral for the service being consumed. For example, if you have a personality test coupled with a job analytic procedure, and you do not have a plan to redeploy conventional talent in the recrutiment process into newer roles, you've not been ecologically sound, although you've gained on accuracy and timeliness of your new service provider. 

3.       Listen Deeply for Value: Many quality providers out there do not have financial muscle to numb you in a media blitzkrieg. When you engage potential service providers before deciding your purchase, have long conversations at first and then long conversation pauses. Clarify your logic for buying even more to arrive at what value you are actually paying for. At times, you will be able to justify the premium you pay. Most often, you will know how much you can save. Assumptions for your purchase are often clearer and the commitment to solution much sounder after such a process. This will reduce wasteful consumption of irrelevant purchases, and in fact make your organisation more 'lean' than those who operate Zero-base annual budgets with transitory 'efficiencies'. 

4.       Discern Customisation : When your service provider gets finicky about what comes with the package,  it is a foreteller of the mind-set you will have to put up with. In software terms, it is evident in length of field-names, and in revenue terms, it is about payment schedules for heavy investments. The more the service is tailored to your context, the more the service has been designed with intent to serve the above guidelines – conserve overall resources, systemic or organic connect with your context, and proximity to your economic value chain.

Often, when the above is factored in service, need for legislative or risk cover in insurance goes down. You get an experience of credibility, higher than the vacuous exposition of competence. What you realise in the process is a confidence in your own needs, and a clarity on value for purposes you engage in.

Buzzwords like globalisation, ‘international’ standards, and MNCs have their sway in times of change. That, like someone mentioned, should not take away from the wealth in your own home. We can do with less clutter on the inside and more collaboration on the outside for sure. In our eagerness to co-operate with models from distant contexts, we may in fact have lost our capacity to collaborate. If this post were not of value to you, do let me know. How can we be more reconciled to such choices in the service economy if we are not willing to explore how much more we have within ourselves? 

Gaza, CT, and the world after GFC (post- 2008)

The misery of civilization today is the demise of inquiry in everyday life.
The Reasons of those who choose the win-win approaches and the reasons of those who adopt the "I win-You got to Lose" approaches are not Wisdom to either side.
Processed e-learning packages and pre-packaged videos or rich data formats make entitlement of pre-configured information the privilege of societal ladders
So, rather than a maturation and mastery over how and why human judgment evolves, we have de-capacitated people consuming more than this place we inhabit can afford. Work and Life will reach a new phase transition. It is a question of when , not how.

Context, Crucible, Crucial Experiences of Values

Recently, I’ve tried to reflect on the apparent fickle-mindedness or the hyper-flexibility of people who act in organisational setups. It is not infrequent now to witness some of the following behaviors in client organisations.

a)     Profess a point of view, and even commit to it in writing. Then do a turnaround, as though they can do it as an act of privilege. E.g. Dishonouring a legal contract ad nauseam; so much so that the contract may now be seen as an instrument of deception itself.

b)    Enthusiastically embrace a point of view, as if to commit to a line of action. Then act, as if they’re acting out a will that is not the one that owned the point of view.

c)     Avail of services, and keep up an image that the organisation is a storehouse of virtue, until your own bills contain threads of damning evidence to the contrary.

Many consultants I know experience these issues. In India, an unreasonable charity in business is not without context. The sheer burden on time and money in following a litigious route can deter one from asserting one’s legal rights. It makes business sense to move on in life, at least when you can. Keeping that ‘suspense’ account for acts not attributable to sheer honor of contracts may often be a wise idea.

However, a charity of perspective is paradoxically still affordable. It would for example be a broad-brush sweep that paints similar incidents with the paint of Integrity. Assuming for a moment it is about absolutism, and not about particularism as may be the case made out of our collectivist, context-rich, meaning-laden interactions of tacit interweaving, why would Integrity remain stunted?

It is largely because:

1.   When we reflect on our experiences, we do not have clear notions of boundaries and limitations. As John Scherer reminds me of what TS Eliott said “Everyone gets the experience, only some get the lesson”.

2.     We ignore creeping transgressions except to track financial misdemeanours

3.     Task obsessed people use weak-ties in their social networks to inform and influence, often missing opportunities to hone core values in wholesome relationships

My inner voice these days tells me “To develop your moral intelligence, re-calibrate your beliefs”. Contexts frame the intrinsic judgment of the individual, and that too in interactive dynamism. That is a crucible for transformation indeed. More on such another time.  

Leadership Turning Points - A process for Growth

Discovery of one’s turning points is an event in life. Like threads that stitch the fabric of meaning, your experiences sit well with wholesome integration.  We succeed with strengths that help us in a certain situation. Overused strengths can become limitations.                                                                     

The treasure of potential is in the paradoxical constraints we place on ourselves. Identify them to your benefit and develop with assurance into the future.   In Leadership Turning Points, the process is about you, and not some distant ideal.

Who would benefit?	Middle and Senior Level Leaders with at least 10 years of work experience who wish to make reliable insights into their leadership enablers and derailers
Why?	Prepare your leadership self for a rapidly changing world
What do you get?	1.       Experiential reflection of your leadership journey in a thorough process 2.       150 Plus Traits Details and Preferences highlighting Life Themes and Strengths 3.       Leadership Paradox Report based on Paradox Technology™ (Harrisons) 4.       Personal attention on your Leadership Development Plan
What do you invest?	Rs. 12,530/-  inclusive of taxes, (for 2 days workshop  and process, Trait Report, Paradox report, lunch and refreshments  & upto 6 post-workshop coaching sessions).
Where do you pay?	Write Cheque / DD towards “Workplace Catalysts LLP” payable at par HDFC Bank, Branch: HRBR Layout, Kalyan Nagar, Bangalore – 560043.  OR Online payment  mode (preferred) at RTGS / NEFT IFSC : HDFC0000353 Account Number: 03532560001966 Account Type : Current. Please quote online transaction reference number after you make payment to help us link your nomination with payment.

Pay by deadline of Jan 10, 2013 to reserve your seat (No more than 20 participants for this workshop. Avoid cancellation charge of 50% of course fee). Write to josephg@workplacecatalysts.com for pre-workshop preparations. Feel free to seek any clarification to help your participation.

Venue : SAIACS CEO Centre – (Kindly register directly with the Center in case you wish overnight accommodation at very reasonable rates under Rs. 2500/- per person, per night)
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The Sociopath Problem Type in Business Organisations - Some context

In designing a learning experience, that addressed the problem solving mind-set, I conceived of at least four types of problems for the context. 1. Person-situation 2. Inter-Personal 3. Polarities or Paradoxes (as problems that need managing than solving per se) and 4. Intra-personal (dealing with cognitive biases). With sufficient practice in classifying and framing such problem-issues, the mind-set for critical thinking around problems is likely to improve. The client is however a business organisation. The mind-set that arises from requisite socialisation is likely to be virtuous as in rationalist exemplars of superior thinking, relatively freer from cognitive biases, and embodied in a context that people anchor by values for productive action and meaningful presence.

Several business organisations suffer from both the convenient and unconscious numbness distributed amongst employees due to autocratic power. Vice laden success in capitalist economic models are assailed with alarm in the short-term. These are forgotten without much effort in the long-term. Despite the radical transparency of our interconnected times, we often lack the interpersonal gravitas to engage in complex systems thinking to effect virtuous change.  

There are residual problems, however, that would take a great deal of practice. Integrating substance in solutions with the form of the problem itself takes time to master. For example, I am still struggling with introducing intra-psychic problems as a genre that can be addressed in group mode!

Psychologists would earmark such problems using differential diagnoses based on theory. The lesson is not lost on the business outcomes of the organisation. Lesson : “manipulating a profit is not the same as earning one”. If you find willing accountants and crooked business leaders in concert, what craft can lead you to pin down their veneers of effort and impact? Sociopaths are difficult to detect in normal conversation. Why, even work related psychometry may not surface the neurotic factors of personality enough for such figures to be detected during selection or placement to roles that accentuate such anomie. 

However, the effects of sociopaths are revealed by courageous victims who endure their leader's shameless deceptions. An employee of a large organisation who wished some developmental insights, recently shared, that her leader would label anyone on the line of sight command as ‘anti-team’, if a different opinion contrary to the fancy ideas packaged for personal glory of the leader is voiced. Existential conflicts in employees of today’s corporations and enterprises are a silent epidemic precipitated by the sleight of septic sociopaths, it would appear.

This dimension surely relates to our conscious Model of Human being. Is man a rational being, a sentient being, a transcendental being or an animal evolving in a chance universe? We underrate values education in school or value clarification exercises at work as necessary to human excellence. We do know that it took close to 100 years since the advent of psychology to embrace the study of consciousness. Or to accept that the unconscious is positive in its intent! We even play truant with the theme as adults, often pitting a model of universality over another, merely to feel apparently saner or temporally safer in an exclusive in-group.

These need systemic intervention. Across the level of the individual, the group and the organisation, effectiveness is premised from personal and inter-personal competence. It is a state of denial in which we assume that synthetic integration of technology and social systems will enable total system effectiveness.  The denial is about human ignorance in a sea of irresponsibility. Critical thinking is labelled as negative at worst, and any view resembling critique dismissed as arrogant irreverence. It takes inner knowing to accept a moment in eternity, howsoever paradoxically it may emerge. 

Even the larger governance in India is critiqued for us to reflect on. Ever thought why centralization and decentralization are bandied about in federal Indian polity? Are they touted more so as to be sophisticated crutches upon which ineffectiveness is justified? Emergent truths, that when systemically perceived, reveals a lack of acceptance of what we as a nation have become. We are indeed mind-blind to facts that electoral outcomes engender. Mind-sightedness on the other hand requires us to take care of our own effectiveness as social beings.

Empathy is a short-coming for those we term as sociopaths. It is said of a crude translation from Hindi that the distance between naivete and stupidity is narrow. The distance between fully a effective being and culpability in promoting sociopaths is its parallel. Would you have a similar feeling? What is your insight?

What can a dialogue mean?

A group of working professionals, line managers and training and development specialists
converged atop a hill-station in 2008 to look within themselves and gain insight about the nature of
dialogue in everyday work situations. Here are some nuggets from that set of deliberations, attended by
yours’ truly. Luminaries quoted here are merely associated with the thoughts expressed, and the
mention of them - not at all declarative of their presence at the meet. Conversations have a way of bringing them to the occasion! Let us look at two kinds of conversation - the discussion and the dialogue.

1. A dialogue is useful. So also is a discussion of use. If we know the difference between them, we
can use them in appropriate context. “If you begin to understand what you are trying to change,
then what you are undergoes a transformation.” – J. Krishnamurthi

2. A discussion in itself may not raise the level of a conversation, whereas a well facilitated
dialogue could. “Leaders elevate the level of a conversation, because they see wisdom in the
statement that a critic is your best friend”. – Prof. Ramnath Narayanswamy, IIM(B)

3. Usually people meet to accomplish a task or to be entertained. Dialogue is not discussion in a
gathering of people because, a discussion hammers out a goal or agreement, solves problems,
and determines well in advance the particular direction of the conversation. A dialogue may
solve problems, may help unblock emotional discord, but it emerges from a different root.
Dialogue is like being in ‘impersonal fellowship’ to an idea to develop common meaning.

4. Even if we have clarified our own position statement within ourselves, we may be in danger of
not being aware of the thought processes of others in the gathering. Discussions may stem the
flow of thought, whereas dialogues could free space for learning and evolution of new thought.

Ever wondered, if the words dialogue and discussion were related? Or otherwise? Worth referring the
dictionary, if you have not seen their meanings sufficiently contrasted. And what does your experience
tell you? The last time a team member was asked to attend a discussion he was told that a decision was
taken. Obviously, the ‘discussion’ was to help explain the decision. Rings true? So whatever happened
to the dictionary meanings of these terms? When did you last have a dialogue? And did it really mean to
discuss areas of disagreement frankly in order to resolve them?

Let me then share with you some essential elements of creating a dialogue-conducive culture.

1. Use of Self: - Start with yourself – demonstrate the principles mentioned below in role modeling
a dialogue based culture. Drop, by drop, the ocean rises, they say.

2. Suspension of Judgment: It is not about negating or removing judgment, but about being aware
of judgment that comes in the way of one’s listening. Judgment is an either/or process. In fact
even agreeing with others’ positions may limit listening. It is like being victim of the amygdalla,
the reptilian brain in us that is reflexive, and not reflective. When practicing suspension of
judgment, you will await more information with genuine curiosity.

3. Identification and Suspension of Assumptions: Rationale, rationale, rationale. Or that is what
we think. Thoughts that emerge from unconscious beliefs need deep listening and reflection to
identify with. Proficiency in identifying and suspending assumptions that make our world-view is
like hosting deep fears in our home without being hostage to them. How do you treat a guest
anyway?

4. Listening: If one has been listened to, there is a clear sense of feeling valued and recognized for
just being. Listening therefore also rings true in the words “I have been spoken for”. Words
cannot overstate the significance of listening. Collaborative partnerships feed on listening. In
dialogue all individuals present add depth to the collective image of the group. Authentic
conversations emerge only when one’s presence is marked by a spontaneity, that is nonjudgmental,
and born of a rapport that synchronizes both the verbal and the non-verbal.

5. Inquiry and Reflection: Reflection is about taking the time to refer to multiple events and
wonder about the connections between them, and thereafter to generate questions that sink
beneath the surface of unquestioned assumptions to the most relevant depth. On the other
hand it is also useful to pay attention to the questions that we do not ask in a group.



6. Non-verbal Communication in Dialogue: Different people relate to different expressions. The
mastery of dialogue is incomplete without sharp access to the use of non-verbals. Whether in a
break-out group that demands sketch pen to flip-chart paper, role-play or still postures of
prayerfulness / meditation, the more profound signals in communication emerge from non-verbals.

Layers of listening cross gender, community, life-histories and such a multitude of sensibilities. Establishing rapport would be a great way to be in dialogue.

Evidently, this is a quick read into a deep domain of human communications. Hope you like it as a
conversation starter. Highlight the contrast between a discussion and a dialogue. A discussion too has its
value. It helps examine an argument, but may not widen its scope.

A dialogue means to ‘cut’ through the center of what may be the object – to get through the entirety, than to ‘shatter’ the parts like an athlete’s thumping discus. Dialogue is a community exploration of how unspoken, almost hidden values and intent can control our behaviors, and therefore potentially unleash an increased sense of harmony, fellowship and creativity.

It can reveal stalemates, inasmuch as it can liberate perspective.

Random thoughts – real observations

I post some points at random for a change. Yet they are from recent experience. Do post comments if you take the time to read this.

1.       Performance witch-hunts: I recently co-facilitated a World Café for SHRM India’s Knowledge Advisory group. When I heard the unadulterated vehemence with which seasoned Chief Learning Officers opined the destructive potential of Performance Management systems, I knew that short-termism had a thrill component for the few, for whom many pay the price today.

Capitalists are out for their pound of dough – their professional managements had invented the performance appraisal process to track down pliable culprits. Thousands and may be millions of employees get neither golden handshakes, nor any word of comfort to satisfy their bosses’ bell-curves whose depiction in board-rooms begs for more of such whistles. According to the latest Glassdoor ratings, only 20% of employees of such companies in India approve of their chief executives. Performance itself has no credibility, never mind the wizards and witches who summon its effects.

2.       Whole-person engagement:  When the word ‘human’ is mentioned, its embodiment is often a mystery. To be human is to err. To be human is to suffer. To be human is to be humble. The word ‘resource’ on the other hand signifies means to an end. Resources produce value. They defy simple arithmetic and leap to geometric progression. Resources are expendable, as they are limited. Human resources are therefore to my mind a wonderful contradiction. Getting the best of both words is like getting to know the depths of each connotation. The ‘whole’ person needs to immerse in the experience of knowing the other. Apparently idealistic, several who walk this planet cannot even hope to conceive of the feat that Felix Baumgartner did with his taming of claustrophobia to personally whizz past the speed of sound.

3.       Inconsistencies in leadership thinking :  Leadership is often construed as a way in which some unequal force will sway over or influence many others to do what they would not consider doing by themselves. What follows is that there is a certainty of followership. I am seriously beginning to wonder if what followership is – is a consequence of leadership itself. Confused? Well, put in another way, a construct such as leadership may be so conceived that other attributes of close association may in fact be so overlooked that we develop a myth in favor of a select few who subsume power that we need never have given them. What then, if this was not leadership, but the charity of the followers' perspectives? And if it were not charity, what if it were a spontaneous trust in the idea than the person(s) who communicate(s) it?

4.       Purpose Rising above Polarities : If the American presidential debate season in 2012 was something to go by, I saw a President tired from office, than tired of it. In his ascendancy in 2008, Barack Obama had a higher purpose coalesced from the fusion of Reagonomics AND Social Justice. Today, he finds it difficult to raise the level of the debate.

Office has ruined clarity in his perceptions. It has locked his perceptual field. A more ‘perfect' Union may still be underway, but the script belied the process in 2012. He may have done better by taking time to engage with the 4  Independents in the fray to keep the electorate hopeful for a fresh bout of his term. Having had to appear the ‘confrontationist’, the debate lay low and perhaps made the electorate less mindful of issues that needed intimate engagement.  

Well, what do you think?