Qualifications or “Callification,” Selection and Retention Criterion

 

Endless Efforts

 

“Callification?” Your efforts to find out what it means in the dictionary shall go in vain. I just made it up.  Patiently read through it; you will know what it means.   

The three submersible pumps working continuously and in tandem could not fill the colony’s overhead tank. The employees kept the pump running. One pump ran dry far too long and burned itself out. The open well also ran dry. They told no one. Why should they? They had nothing to lose. I noticed the unusual activity and enquired. This had been going on for a few days. It should not have. 

I did a quick calculation of the flow rates of the pumps, the capacity of the community tank, and the tanks over the individual houses. Considering the endless efforts of the pumps, all the overhead tanks should have been filled and overflowing. It did not happen. I concluded that there must be a leak somewhere in the pipeline. The large amount of water that leaked out must have gone under the foundation of somebody's house. People seemed to be oblivious to the potential losses and damage. 

Stimulus 

“Let us check the pipeline to identify and plug the leak,” I suggested. “You have no qualifications to decide what is wrong with the water distribution system,” came the only response in the group. I was not surprised. I did not expect anything different from that individual. Did the crass response stem from deep-rooted prejudice germinated in ignorance? 

Ignorance? The individual had never bothered to ask me about my qualifications or experience. He could not have known about my academic or professional qualifications.  I did not have to revisit the lessons in fluid mechanics or applied engineering or fall back on my experiences in managing the civic amenities of one of the biggest cantonments to understand the elementary science problem. I also did not have to rack my brain to remember my lessons in missile technology. After all, determining why an overhead tank refuses to fill up is no rocket science.  

Prejudice? Prejudice is a platform internally constructed by an individual using preconceived notions about individuals, groups, or even things. The result of a “taught” or “thought” concept, it invariably becomes a subconscious driver. It influences, often negatively, everything an individual thinks, says, or does. We all carry prejudices of some sort and tend to use broad-brushed templates in our thoughts, and actions. Some amongst us make it obvious and take it to obnoxious levels. Prejudice is the result of our inability or unwillingness to reason out within ourselves. If we sit down and dispassionately analyse our conversations and the decisions we have taken over time, we should be able to spot the prejudices underpinning them. 

Many believe that the job of the Army is to only guard the country’s borders. They think that everybody in the army stands in rows along the borders preventing people from crossing over. Some feel the Army is all about marching and doing physical exercises in the morning to prepare themselves for a duel at the border and doing sentry duty. They ask, “What does the army do when there is no war?” They cannot fathom the extent to which officers of the Indian Army toil on various contemporary academic and professional subjects. Their mobility up the hierarchy ladder is largely linked to their performance in these tests. Unfortunately, such injurious ignorance is prevalent even amongst the “supposed to be” well-read.  

Response 

I was angry and instinctively wanted to respond in the same coin.  The wisdom that age, exposure, experiences, and knowledge bestowed on me forbade me from stooping down. I decided to deny traction to the foul mouth. His response, however, triggered a much deeper thought. I am, by nature, given to analyse the ‘why and how’ behind every ‘what’ I see or experience. Why did he say that? Nobody does anything once. There is always a pattern and they leave a trail. He did. 

Besides his prejudice, which I was aware of, there must be an underlying belief that prompted the response. In possession of a professional degree, he had given himself to the belief that formal qualifications define an individual’s competence and his place in society. It showed in his generally loud and contemptuous behaviour. Unfortunately, there are many like him, enslaved by similar beliefs. This misplaced belief has forced people to obtain fancy qualifications by whatever possible means. It is common knowledge that people adopt illegal means to secure academic degrees. Some go to the extent of even buying doctorate degrees. Esteem somehow seems tagged to the few letters that find a place after an individual’s name. Do formal qualifications denote competence?   

Understanding “Callification” 

The discussion does not in any manner advocate the thought that an educational degree is a waste of time. One needs to have the basic requisite educational qualification. Mere possession of the qualification, however, is no guarantee of the presence of expected skills or the aptitude to apply the acquired knowledge. If an educational degree defines comparable competence, two equally qualified professionals like chefs, doctors, economists, fashion designers, lawyers, or musicians, should all demonstrate comparable performance. This is not the case. 

Everyone gets the initial foothold into a profession using the few letters representing a mandated educational degree. It may also be the inescapable requisite for career progression. Degrees merely indicate that the person has cleared a qualifying examination, by whatever means. The marks obtained by the person do not in any manner indicate his proficiency. It merely shows how well he fared in recalling answers to the questions, which in turn was anyway a matter of probability. This gives the individual the required ‘qualification’ to secure entry to an organisation or a job. Once an entry has been obtained, they need to perform in the role assigned. In performance, the difference between grain and chaff lies in “callification.” Without callification, however, smart one may be, one cannot make lasting Impressions in the field one has chosen. 

“Callification,” is the calling from within. If a person has a calling from within to be in a profession, then the quality of the work, he or she gives the organisation and the impact the person makes easily stand out from the rest. They are normally so self-motivated that they only need to be told the end state, not the how. Team leaders can easily distinguish between those driven by qualification and fired by “callification.” 

Selection Criterion 

Recruitment is now mostly an outsourced activity. Recruiters and head hunters are guided by the selection criteria template provided by the client. They look only at the qualification and track record of the prospective resource because they have no means to determine the callification.  Team leaders at all levels would love to have those fired by “callification” because it makes achieving goals easy. Many “callified” people are considered mavericks and leaders unsure of themselves may be loath to have them around. 

One of the common responses I get to most of my articles is, “What is the remedy?” There is no panacea for HR problems. It must be tailored to suit each situation. I cannot help HR professionals or those involved in making policies on selection, career progression, attrition,
and retention, by prescribing any means to determine if someone has the “callification” that they are looking for. I certainly know of a CEO who goes to great lengths to look for it.  

The CEO 

The qualification required to get on to the organisational roll is just an engineering degree. The degree guarantees the prospective candidate only an opportunity to sit for an examination conducted by the firm.  The exam unlike entrance processes adopted by many other firms focuses mostly on the application of knowledge that the qualification was supposed to have provided the candidate with. It also evaluates the ingenuity and adaptability of the candidate. 

Once a candidate gets through the written gateway, he or she faces an interview. According to the CEO, they look for the “spark” in the candidate. Talking to the CEO, I understand that the candidate reveals the presence or absence of the “spark” they are looking for within the first five minutes of the interview. The candidates call it the “desire to do something special” and I now call it “callification.” The candidate’s lack of communication skills does not become a barrier in this determination process.  It is a vibe, a feel that the candidate sends across and one that can easily be picked up by the discerning. The firm attributes the almost 100% retention of the resources to that spark or callification. The firm has been growing, in size and business. 

With no malice to recruiting agencies and professional head hunters, third-party recruitment may always ensure qualified resources, not “callified” ones.  Organisations staffed by “callified” people can make even deserts bloom.

Building Organisational Capabilities for Sustenance and Growth

History The Teacher

History talks of many an empire. What could be common to all the empires of the past?

The Mauryas, Guptas, Mughals, Romans, Persians, Ottoman, Hans, Spanish and the British, each one a powerful regime, held sway over vast swathes of land and had subjects across geographical boundaries we now recognise. Geographically and chronologically spaced well apart, each one tremendously influenced populace it ruled upon and made lasting contributions to virtually every aspect of contemporary culture.

Each came into existence and grew but couldn’t succeed in sustaining themselves to grow into perpetuity. Despite unquestionable powers, and repressive enforcement systems, perpetuity eluded each one of them. Having failed to sustain and grow beyond a time, they now remain confined to pages of history; their significance waxing and waning, at the mercy of contemporary political regimes in their attempt to attain perpetuity.

History is a great teacher. Those who do not learn from history are condemned to repeat it.

Study history and take a close look at current geopolitics and experience a sense of déjà vu.

Sustenance and Growth – An Entwined Pair

Sustenance is about finding fodder for existence whereas growth is an organic characteristic that enhances relevance of an entity to its surroundings. Growth is comparison, of an entity to itself or others plotted on a timeline. Thus, growth of an individual could be of about chronological age, biological and intellectual attributes, capacity to fend for oneself or contributions to the society.

For business entities, sustenance is about footing the bill of operations without going down under; whereas growth is multi-dimensional expansion, in areas of activity or structural architecture. Sustenance of business depends on its ability to generate return on investments. Growth depends on the share of ROI employed to extend the envelope of relevance and influence. Sustenance-growth combination dictates sustainability.

Though inseparably entwined, sustenance and growth have independent attributes. Continued sustenance results in growth. Growth demands new dimensions of sustenance. Demands of sustenance denied, entity dies. Bare sustenance stunts growth and stunted growth kills. Good sustenance nurtures growth.

Essentially organisational existence is an ever-demanding ever-expanding, never-ending cycle of sustenance and growth that can extend to perpetuity.

Perpetuity

Craving for perpetuity is hardwired into every species.

In the case of animals, limitations of perpetuity imposed by physiology is overcome by bloodlines called family. The evolved, ensure perpetuity through ideologies or lasting contributions to society.

Organisations, being nonbiological entities, differ. Organisations can subsist for a short while on minimal returns. But such existence does not promote growth. Absence of growth is atrophy. Atrophy eventually kills. Growth is inescapable for organisational existence. Therefore, perpetuity has to be designed and weaved into organisational architecture. Sustenance and growth into perpetuity is sustainability. Sustainability goes far beyond its recent self-limiting association with organisational performance in environmental social and governance yardsticks.

Existence in perpetuity is deemed when entities don’t plan to down shutters. Organisations born with predetermined life expectancy don’t visualise growth. Those which plan otherwise, are fly-by-night operations which loot and scoot. Perpetuity is not applicable to them.

Fuel for sustainability is profitability. So, prima facie everything about business sustainability is about financials, the bottom lines! Can abundant profits ensure sustainability?

Is Profitability Sustainability?

Abundant fuel assures extended cruise range. But the structure must be built to overcome turbulences, capture headwinds and negotiate crosswinds. Otherwise, sustainability, even with huge quantum of fuel could be port afar, because unmanaged inherent asymmetries exert exponentially increasing drag consuming all the fuel at one’s command.

History is replete with examples of companies with attractive balance sheets vanishing into thin air. Profits, real or cooked up, couldn’t prevent extinction. Satyam, Enron, Lehman Brothers and such others could teach us a lesson or two.

If profitability couldn’t guarantee sustainability, then what does?  Definitely there is something else. What is it?

Sustainability Models

Simplistically put, sustainability is the characteristic, of an organisation, which influences current operations to ensure existence in perpetuity. Sustainability is about future-proofing tomorrows, today.

Easier said than done, tomorrows of a business, is a complex amalgam of environmental, social, and financial diktats. Each one, an important capital, often at loggerheads with others, needs to be ‘relationally managed’ to ensure sustainability. Each one has to be nourished without compromising the other. Thus, sustainable growth of a business organisation necessitates creation of governance models (ESG Models) that ensure balance amongst the trio.

Contemporary businesses have migrated en masse to ESG models for sustainable growth. ESG models are characterized by well-defined measurable yardsticks and tick-box adherences. There are highly evolved models that incorporate compliances and various business requisites. Business entities employ such models to evaluate organisational systems and processes. Unfortunately, even well-intentioned companies with well-defined, well-articulated policies and well prescribed methods and process fail.

Is the current ESG regime inadequate?

ESG Adequacy?

ESG is an unbelievably large canvas to draw from and therefore concept of sustainability cannot remain confined to any one approach or model. The number of approaches to adherence and compliances are varied and number of proponents of each model even more.

Businesses naturally adopt any one approach that suits their area of operations and gravitate to chosen areas to be in conformity with local laws. CSR activities, emission reductions, reusable energy, carbon audit and foot print reduction are some areas where companies evince interest. But most of them are compliance driven.

Some highly evolved ESG models incorporate business ethics and profitability into the monitoring and evaluation system. The choice, notwithstanding, each one ends in benchmarked processes with quantifiable and measurable parameters.  Does adherence to ESG norms alone ensure sustainability?

Processes have important role in sustainability so do people driving and operating it. Sustainability boils down to building organisational capabilities that encompass people and process.

Organisational Capabilities

The synergy cumulative of competencies of all individuals of an organisation and efficacy of processes is organisational capability. Accepted and collectively practiced value systems, that define and dictate how individuals and groups interact within and with the outside, represents organisational culture. Organizational sustainability is a derivative of organizational capability and culture.

When business entities succeed in creating and internalising a meaningful organizational culture that shapes strategic decision-making, define ethical boundaries for transactions, dictate operational activities and bind all stakeholders to it, it can hope for sustainability.

How does this brick-by-brick process happen?

Committed Competencies

Each organisation needs individuals with skills and competencies to achieve organisational aims. While each individual cannot be expected to possess all competencies required by the organisation, all individuals should have each competency required to discharge responsibilities assigned. Though onboarding would have been based on stipulated QR, it calls for continued refinement.

If organisational culture is conducive, each individual will excel not only in the core competency expected, but also acquit themselves well with additional skill sets, making them deployable in multiple area of operation. Presence of enlarged range and depth of competencies creates conditions conducive to sustainability. Chances of sustainability improves when competencies become commitments.

Organisational Agility

An organisation may come to existence to provide a specific product or service or a range of products or services. Unfortunately, demand for both products and services do not remain static in terms of nature, quality and content. The constant socio-economic-cultural flux that the world is in, demands consistently matching changes. While an existing product or service may be the toast of the time, it could be dumped at short notice.

The pandemic and associated unprecedented disruptions forced many a business to fold up. At the same time, new ones sprang up with unheard-of products and services. While those who reveled in the status quo were left to lament loss of opportunities, the agile ones seized opportunities the adversity provided. A whole new set of millionaires were created.

If an organisation can sense the need to change its product, service or process well in time and is agile enough to bring about changes in processes and methods, probability of sustainability improves.

The Fickle Capital

Businesses survive and thrive on stakeholder inputs. The promoter or equity holders alone do not dictate sustainability outcomes. The clientele, vendors, the society and all the elements of the value chain are important stakeholders in the sustainability matrix. Treating each one with care leads to brand loyalty. One-time creation of clientele and servicing them do not create brand loyalty. Loyalty comes from long time of pleasant association

A static loyal clientele does not guarantee sustainability. Unless an organisation continues to enlarge its loyal clientele, sustainability is a no-go. Loyalty, in times of aggressive market poaching, is a fickle attribute that succumbs to temptation. Disruptive pricing and alluring promises can lure away the loyal. Quality of product or service should be strong enough to resist brand credibility and loyalty erosion.

It is not the consuming clientele alone that matters. How an organisation treats its vendors and other elements of the supply chain, has a significant say in sustainability. When the going gets tough, it is the set of vendors, who render shoulders to the organisation. Unless stakeholders are treated well during harvest, sustainability will be the first casualty in adversity. Growing loyalty improves sustainability.

Teams and Networks

Organisations thrive on teamwork. Unfortunately, the concept of team seems to get confined to silos within organisations. In fiercely competitive organisations, teams are confined to verticals or less. Sadly, with raging cutthroat competition and interpersonal one-upmanship fostered by competitive comparisons, verticals shrink to segments, segments to groups and groups to individuals who don’t trust each other. Trust deficit is paramount and resultant dwindling retention, an epidemic. Teams do not live long enough to foster esprit-de-corps.

This is the ultimate recipe for disaster for organisational sustainability.

If an organisation can enlarge definition of ‘teams’, operationalise it to be more inclusive, and establish bridges of operational and non-operational relationships long enough to create kinship that can endure turbulences, probability of sustainability, improves tremendously.  It’s the strength of the network that helps identify, handle and overcome individual and organisational challenges.

Team longevity enhances organisational sustainability.

Leadership

Quality of leadership influences sustainability. Leadership is associated with vision and decisions.

It is the ability the leadership, individually or collectively, to define the desired organisational trajectory, understand the socio-economic, politico-cultural and environmental situations currently obtaining and likely to evolve, design interventions and apply course corrections that influences sustainability.

It involves predicting turbulences and generating a range of likely responses to negotiate and overcome challenges. It’s a risky affair. Unkind, but casually called ‘sound decision-making’, organisational leadership dictates sustainability.

It is only history and hindsight that can judge strength and weaknesses of decisions.

Operational Efficiencies     

It is not only people that matter. Processes have an important role in dictating sustainability. The bottom line is about operational efficiency, which encompasses a large array of activity. It encompasses technology adoption, obsolescence management, market dynamics and interior economy.

Local civil laws and norms may exert pressure, forcing changes that involve capital. Decision on how long to continue with existing technology or process and when to dump those in favour of the newest technology doesn’t come without pressure on capital. Capture of new markets and retention of existing ones may need capital infusions. Delay in infusion may be suicidal whereas untimely intervention could even be counterproductive.

Dilemma of contesting existing profit margins with infusion of capital to stay ahead is not new to leadership, but every time it's a challenge. That is when leadership and decision-making become demanding and exiting.

Sustainability Mantra

Without right leaders and led and without right processes, business can neither sustain nor grow. There is no single mantra to achieve sustainability.

Sustainability is like riding the high seas. Neither two waves nor two storms are same. Every calm is a whisper of an impending storm. It is for the captain and crew to negotiate waves and ride out storms. 

Leaders must foresee waves and storms and prepare the led to take on the fiercest. The led must relentlessly press on. Only then can they triumph.

Sustainability isn’t easy, else empires would have persisted.

 

Stories of Birbal - The Untold Part

 Folklore or History

Almost every Indian child, schooled or not, would have listened to stories about Birbal, Akbar’s most trusted courtier. Birbal rose to such a position of importance, relevance and trust that the emperor gave him quarters within the palace. He was considered first amongst the ‘navaratans’. Incidents centered around Birbal, true or not, is folklore. While some of the stories going around may be true, most of them are too good to be true, yet substance for interesting folklore. 

Perception Shift

Birbal’s exploits resonated with my childhood naivety seeking triumphant truth. It was exciting to see how Birbal used wit and intelligence as powerful tools to help the emperor understand follies, arrive at correct decisions and administer justice. Birbal was the hero. Evil and deceit were detected and truth triumphed.

As adolescence kicked in, perceptions changed colours. Birbal’s exploits assumed a different form. How could a powerful emperor be so naïve, foolish and blind to the plots that seemed to be hatched on a daily basis? History showed me a different Akbar. If Akbar was dependent of Birbal for daily business how did he become an emperor? May be, Birbal was just a figment of imagination.

As I grew older, I became conscious of decision-making and recognised how integral it is to personal and professional life. I realised the value of quality and quantity of inputs in decision making. I learned to distinguish faces from masks and words from intent. As I revisited Birbal, I recognized the message integral to a story and realised that there was much more than the obvious.  All stories had a common thread, gem of a thread!

The Gem

Look around, the characters in each of the story, are alive and present. While what they say or do may be different, contextual similarities are striking. Plotters, whisperers, greedy, exploited, unreasonable et all, are still around albeit in different forms and shades. One just needs to step back and look through Birbal’s eyes to identify them. The real face of behind the masks and the real intent behind the words become clear. The most important lesson however is something else. Each story is about interpersonal communication and how it can be sustained even in trying circumstances.

Ingredients of Successful Communication

Communication is all about transfer of thoughts. It could be triggered by a deed, word, or sight. It may or may not demand physical action. When we communicate, we have a purpose. Thus, meaningful communication is always agenda driven. That is why great orators can move masses. Interpersonal communication is best possible if carried out in an environment of trust, fearlessness and patience. Each and every Akbar -Birbal story exemplifies successful communication even in heavily loaded inequality.

Akbar had powers over the lives of all his subjects. He was law unto himself. Though Birbal enjoyed unhindered access, he too was at the mercy of Akbar’s whims and fancies. Yet he allowed Birbal to contest his decisions. 

Was it his weakness ?

Was it by design?

Encircling or Enriching?

As one rises in hierarchy and becomes powerful, it is important to have someone beside to truthfully caution one on the right and wrong of deeds and words. Unfortunately, it is human to surround oneself with those who say only what one wants to hear. These are normally self serving entities that mushroom where opportunities exist and slither away when adversity come calling. They invent and attribute virtues and give a sense of invincibility to the boss. while one may feel enriched and exalted in their company, they may actually be isolating the boss from reality. Over time  one becomes captive to their designs. Empires have bitten dust, organisations disappeared and positions rendered irrelevant just because those at the helm chose to encircle themselves with pleasers. 

Longevity of success is better if a leader accepts criticism and shows willingness to change decisions. Ego is human and unavoidable. It feels good when egos are massaged. But  it can be addictive and over time like all addictions lead to doom.

Sweetened Bitter Pill

Interestingly whenever Birbal disagreed with his master he either did it in private or couched it in self-depreciating words and deeds. For Birbal, it could have been a life-saving strategy. 

But it also effectively ensured that decisions are critically evaluated and the long-term impact or the  inherent injustice brought to the notice of the decision maker. 

Birbal showcases how best dissent and disagreements can be expressed and remedies elicited.

With life at stake if the protagonist has puled it off for long, there  can be no better lesson or case study in management communication than Akbar - Birbal Stories.

BUILDING BRAND FOR BETTER RETURNS

 Difference in Brand Construct

After a day-long drive, I checked in to a hotel beside Lake Rotorua, New Zealand. Staff on duty seemed happy, committed, behaved as if they owned the place and impressed me with impeccable their conduct. The experience was different from all other hotels I had ever checked in. 

Back home, I wanted to buy an equipment for my house. Influenced by advertisements and impressed by the proprietor’s publicised and principled stand on various socio-political issues, I decided on a brand. Machines, irrespective of make, do fail but services promised should not. Repeated calls to the service centre went unattended. It required persistence and contacts to get my work done!

Dr APR is a medical specialist in whom, my trust has grown each day over a decade. I refer my friends and seek long distance pro bono consultancy for many.

Three different brands and three different brand images. Hype and hoopla around brand promotion aside, brand image is all about how it connects and stays on with the consumer.

Responses

The hotel, on a faraway continent, responded to my review[1]. I refer the hotel to travellers and receive helpful votes on my page.

The response from the manufacturer located a few kilometres away from where I stay, was just a system generated acknowledgement to my mail. They neither returned my calls nor followed up on mail. In fact, many have expressed similar experiences. I strongly advice those whom I know against having anything to do with the unresponsive brand that is destined to wither away.

The doctor unassumingly continues serving humanity. I continue to refer the doctor and pester him for advice for any one whom I think needs help. Those referred refer others!

Spurred by my experiences, I end up unknowingly reinforcing multiple brand images, either favourably or unfavourably.

Promised Experience

Though defined as intangible, brand is an identity that promises a tangible experience. More favourable the experienceable and consistently closer to the promise, better perceived and accepted becomes the brand. Mega launches, opulent promotions, celebrity endorsements, and audacious allocations gather eyeballs till the glitz last. Image, loyalty and value of brands are made of greater stuff. It rests on something abstract seemingly promised by the brand. Invariably, it is the prevalent perception amongst the masses.

Though individual perception may vary, there is a commonly held belief associated with each brand. It could be as subjectively vague as quality – price combination or as objective as warranty services or as intangible as societal relevance or trust worthiness. It is this uniquely individual expectation that aggregates to what the population believes is the brand promise. It is the ability of a brand to meet individual and collective expectation which decides its reach. It is at this point brand loyalty is sown.

Seeding Loyalty

Enticing pricing schemes loaded with freebies can bait reach and generate initial volumes. It seldom seeds loyalty nor reaps retention. Advertisements and celebrity endorsements ensure brand visibility that can help move it, once off the shelf. However, real growth of a brand happens not by the first sale but through repeated buys by the same customer. Ability of the brand to repeatedly satiate customer’s expectations seeds brand loyalty. Consumer then accepts, adopts and owns the brand. Such brand loyalty dictates brand life expectancy.

Brand’s growth is driven by its performance aided by tentacles of the brand. A knowledgeable salesman at the counter representing the brand, a friendly service engineer on a house call, a helpful call centre executive taking a feedback or recording a complaint are tentacles of the brand, which nourishes and enriches its image. The combination, of performance and support systems, seeks and seeds loyalty, makes it addictive and ensures brand success.  

Brand, after all, is nothing more than a collection of pleasant or unpleasant memories about a product or service. Brand equity essentially is the outcome of brand loyalty.

Brand Equity

Equity is synonymous with ownership. A brand, whose ownership is confined only to its creators, promoters and on those who are stuck with it, is doomed. A brand must have the inherent wherewithal to influence and entice so as to spread, grow and thrive. The ability of a brand to meet and go beyond expectations, is what fuels its growth. It is this characteristic of the brand that enhances its equity. Brand equity is built on performance, reliability and durability. Brand equity is essentially the outcome of brand image and its societal reach. It is bound to suffer if those, dealing with it, act deviant.

Brand Image

A good brand embodies the core values integral to the parent organisation. Brand image is the reflection of organisational culture. Size notwithstanding, great brand images come from organisations with impeccable core values. Fly-by-night operators or get-rich-quick promoters resorting to sell-and-scoot techniques can never offer great brands.

While brand identity is a time-consuming creation, brand image is the considered affirmation or rejection of the identity marketed. The brand would eventually find its own niche in the market. That is why some carefully crafted, aggressively marketed, celebrity endorsed brands enjoy hoisted reputation only to suffer equity erosion.

Its when employees and employers alike internalise core values the brand represents, can they effectively promote the brand. Better the internalisation, integration and implementation, lesser the need to labour on marketing strategies and sculpting brand identity. That is why selection and induction of individual into organisations assumes importance.

Brand Value

In the market place everything finally has to be translated into numbers. Brands are no exception. Different agencies use different parameters and methods of evaluation to calculate brand value. Irrespective of the method used to assign objective value to a subjective aspect, two elements that immensely impact brand value are reach and loyalty, which in turn is dependent on consistency in performance. Both these aspects theoretically or statically calculatable, effectively dictate the movement of the brand, turnover of the company and therefore the profit margins. In turn, brand value impacts the price of equity shares. Thus, it becomes a key consideration in acquisitions and justifiably demands appropriate compensation.

ROI

Brand represents cumulative aggregation of all investments made in a specific product, service or endeavour and investments must yield returns.  Marketing strategies certainly increase visibility, recall and market penetration. However, the real yield comes from the inherent strength of the brand and the image it has created for itself rather than the identity projected. Better the image, higher the returns.

A lingering Thought

Isn’t every individual a living brand? Isn’t time for us to evaluate our own ‘brand net worth’ at least once?

 

---

[1] Trip advisor and Google

A Business Winning Hearts - Can Goodness Drive Business?

Tricolour with Pride

On the Independence Day, our National Flag is hoisted with pride across the country.  Government Institutions, individuals and even commercial organisations hoist the National Flag. While governmental institutions are mandated to hoist the Tricolour, private citizens and commercial entities do it out of pride.  Commercial entities however, do not hesitate to use the event as an exercise in ‘image building’. In fact, I feel, it is good for an organisation to draw on nationalistic pride, provided they really mean it.

When, I was approached, by Mr Satish, the manager of one such organisation, to unfurl the National Flag on the Independence Day, I readily agreed. I wanted to utilise the occasion to address the gathering about our duties as citizens and increase awareness about defence forces.

Brilliant Organising Skills

Having spent most of my life in uniform, punctuality is integral to my existence.  I had made it clear to Mr Satish. I was elated to see Mr Satish arrive exactly at the appointed time to pick me up and we reached the venue dot on time, despite the detour forced upon us by flooded roads. I was pleasantly surprised to see more than 400 people, all employees of the organisation, each one neatly dressed, standing in orderly manner. It felt like walking into an army unit ready for inspection.

The function was meticulously organised and concluded with all of us enthusiastically singing the National Anthem. The flawless manner in which the event unraveled rivalled an Army function. The command and control of the organisational hierarchy, the willing and automatic compliance to instructions already given and unity of purpose was very visibly evident. There was something more than mere employer- employee relationship that was at play. It was the sign of healthy organisational climate. I was eager to identify the cohesive force.

Beyond Footfalls

Discussions with people can become real learning experiences if one has requisite skills and patience. If carried adequately long, conversations with people reveal the real organisational dynamics at play, however hard they attempt to mask. If the employee’s trust has been won, one can get to know the real organisation, in flesh and blood beyond the glittering facade.

Subsequent to the event, I sat down to an informal cup of coffee with Mr Roju Mathew, the senior most employee of the organisation and got him to talk. He was neither the proprietor masquerading as ‘chief worker’ nor one with any shares in the business. He was just an employee – a dedicated happy employee who has been with the organisation for 22 years and has climbed the ladder from the lowest step. He seemed to be in complete control.

In the course of the discussion I told him that, I had been to his organisation many times as a customer and felt that there was tremendous scope of enhancing the footfalls and converting the existing casual footfalls into benevolent ones. I also told him about my experience in managing CSR and my personal involvement in rehabilitation of the flood victims of 2018 in Kerala.

I found myself unprepared to handle the information I was made privy to.

Heart of Gold

If what he told me was true, I was getting to know about a businessman with a heart of gold. The proprietor I was told, got about 250 houses constructed for the victims of the flood that devastated Kerala in 2018. I was told that no publicity was given to any acts of philanthropy by the individual.

With regards to the reluctance to tap the business potential inherent to casual footfalls, I was informed that peripheral activities are run not for profit, though they are not in loss. Because he was making sufficient profits in his core business activity, he continues with peripheral business activities despite inadequate ROI because a large number of families depend on it for their sustenance.  Even when he could easily maximise profits by closing down the not so attractive ones, he continues with it because it provides livelihood for a large number of people.

I think, I stumbled upon the connect that held the business model in place. 

It may be proof that even good hearts can be engines of sustainable growth.

Kudos to the big heart.

Claims & Disclaimers

1. I have never ever met the proprietor. I am not even distantly related to him.

2. I don’t have any stakes or shares in this business. 

3. I have written this article based on my personal observation and purely on the inputs gathered during the conversation with the staff. 

4. I don't expect and will not accept any remuneration for the article from this business house. 

5.The details of the philanthropic work done by the businessman have not been verified by me on ground. However, I did see photographs of the houses said to have been constructed.