Well, strategisers and business gurus like to talk endlessly about mechanisms for an organization to reach the pinnacle of excellence - about how we should improve the processes in an organization, how we can design endless dashboards and knowledge respositories for smooth flow and sharing of information, how organizations need to be innovative, how companies like Dell through their supply chain marvels or Google through their technological innovations have mastered the paradigm of being in the category of "Learning Organizations" onroute their journey towards excellence, but often we forget one simple basic resource - that all these efforts are simply meaningless without the support of people.
People, or Human Resources, or Human Capital, whatever we may - it is the people who constitute the most important and yet most vulnerable resource that has to be optimised and mobilized by any organization in its quest for success and adulation. And why so? I mean, if an organization has all its processes and systems and structures and knowledge in place, why is it that we accord the highest order of importance to people? Because, it is the people who implement processes in an organization, I mean, processes are only techniques to accomplish certain preordained goals. But who implements those processes? It is the employees. Who checks those processes to make sure that the outputs that they generate are of use to the company? Once again, it is the people. And before the era of large-scale automation of processes and systems, who was it who took pains to check each and every process and be sure of the significance of each one of them - It were the employees of the organization.
We talk about the significance of strategy - but who develops this strategy? It is the CEO in conjunction with the CIO, CFO, CTO and the other directors. And who are they? They are some high profile "people" in the organization. How does strategy evolve? It is through harnessing the individual creative spurts in these individuals that we develop strategies designed to deliver a knock-out punch to competitors. So, strategies are also born out of people's brains. Well, we can argue that they have technologies to their aid, but then those technologies are being continuously improved and worked on by thousans of other people in same or different organizations. Can we imagine an organization like Google without Sergey Brin and Larry Page? The answer is No. Can we imagine Apple without the individual brilliance of Steve Jobs? No. I mean, look at what happened to Apple when they moved on from Steve Jobs. Its products floundered, its competitors marched ahead and it no longer could maintain that scorching pace of innovation and financial muscle. My intention is not to attribute its earlier success solely to Steve Jobs, but they were rudderless, without a leader. And then they brought Jobs back (Jobs, meanwhile had moved on to Pixar Animation, a household name thanks to movies like Finding Nemo). And the rest, as they say, is History. If we look at Google, they have instituted processes to harness and tap into their employees creative juices. And a lot of their products are the results of such innovation brought about by the minds of prolific Google guys.
If we take a look into history, it is filled with examples of how the fate of entire nations has been shaped by people. Take the Roman Civilization for example. It had the best structure in terms of bureaucracy, the best roads and infrastructure and charismatic leaders in Julius and Augustus. But over time it degraded. Why? Because its people failed. Because the rulers neglected the commoners, they indulged in luxury and vices and fought long battles. So, while the cause of success can be people, they can also be the course of destruction.
Lets take the case of Maruti. Recently, the workers at its Manesar plant went on a strike. People issue. Without going into a debate into the legitimacy of the demands of the workers, let us look at the result. What happened? Proudction stalled at the Manesar plant for 13 days, the company with world-class processes and systems in place clocked a production loss of 10,000 units and in value terms Rs. 400 crores, the company's stocks fell, and it neagively impacted not only the company but also the sales of the overall industry. And that is just a small example of what happens when we are not able to manage human resources to our advantage. There are bigger examples of how people have single-handedly led the world to war, think Hitler, Mussolini and on the other hand, who have single-handedly, brought peace, like Gandhi.
And, what better way, to end this boring monologue with a picture - of Mckinsey's 7S principles of a successful organization.
People, or Human Resources, or Human Capital, whatever we may - it is the people who constitute the most important and yet most vulnerable resource that has to be optimised and mobilized by any organization in its quest for success and adulation. And why so? I mean, if an organization has all its processes and systems and structures and knowledge in place, why is it that we accord the highest order of importance to people? Because, it is the people who implement processes in an organization, I mean, processes are only techniques to accomplish certain preordained goals. But who implements those processes? It is the employees. Who checks those processes to make sure that the outputs that they generate are of use to the company? Once again, it is the people. And before the era of large-scale automation of processes and systems, who was it who took pains to check each and every process and be sure of the significance of each one of them - It were the employees of the organization.
We talk about the significance of strategy - but who develops this strategy? It is the CEO in conjunction with the CIO, CFO, CTO and the other directors. And who are they? They are some high profile "people" in the organization. How does strategy evolve? It is through harnessing the individual creative spurts in these individuals that we develop strategies designed to deliver a knock-out punch to competitors. So, strategies are also born out of people's brains. Well, we can argue that they have technologies to their aid, but then those technologies are being continuously improved and worked on by thousans of other people in same or different organizations. Can we imagine an organization like Google without Sergey Brin and Larry Page? The answer is No. Can we imagine Apple without the individual brilliance of Steve Jobs? No. I mean, look at what happened to Apple when they moved on from Steve Jobs. Its products floundered, its competitors marched ahead and it no longer could maintain that scorching pace of innovation and financial muscle. My intention is not to attribute its earlier success solely to Steve Jobs, but they were rudderless, without a leader. And then they brought Jobs back (Jobs, meanwhile had moved on to Pixar Animation, a household name thanks to movies like Finding Nemo). And the rest, as they say, is History. If we look at Google, they have instituted processes to harness and tap into their employees creative juices. And a lot of their products are the results of such innovation brought about by the minds of prolific Google guys.
If we take a look into history, it is filled with examples of how the fate of entire nations has been shaped by people. Take the Roman Civilization for example. It had the best structure in terms of bureaucracy, the best roads and infrastructure and charismatic leaders in Julius and Augustus. But over time it degraded. Why? Because its people failed. Because the rulers neglected the commoners, they indulged in luxury and vices and fought long battles. So, while the cause of success can be people, they can also be the course of destruction.
Lets take the case of Maruti. Recently, the workers at its Manesar plant went on a strike. People issue. Without going into a debate into the legitimacy of the demands of the workers, let us look at the result. What happened? Proudction stalled at the Manesar plant for 13 days, the company with world-class processes and systems in place clocked a production loss of 10,000 units and in value terms Rs. 400 crores, the company's stocks fell, and it neagively impacted not only the company but also the sales of the overall industry. And that is just a small example of what happens when we are not able to manage human resources to our advantage. There are bigger examples of how people have single-handedly led the world to war, think Hitler, Mussolini and on the other hand, who have single-handedly, brought peace, like Gandhi.
And, what better way, to end this boring monologue with a picture - of Mckinsey's 7S principles of a successful organization.
Well, freinds what do we have here!!! Among the 7S's, two are "STAFF" and "SKILLS". So they also say that an organization needs to have structure, strategy and systems but the integration and amalgamation of all of these to lend value to the organization happens through people and people, with the right skills.
That's all for the day. Until next time.
Cheers!!!
Signing off,
Shauvik.
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