OVERSIGHT: ALL ABOUT CONTAINING OVERSIGHT

Contranym

Oversight is an interesting contranym! Too many incidents of oversight prove absence of oversight!

Contranym?

A contranym is a word with the same spelling but the opposite meaning. In other words, it’s a homonym that’s an antonym. A homonym is a word spelled like another with a different meaning while an antonym is a word with the opposite meaning, context in which it is used deciding the meaning.

Oversight, in the context of ‘overseeing’, is about supervision but in its contranym context, it’s about errors unintentional or otherwise. Frequent incidents of oversight indicate systemic rot in the system due to ineffective oversight; disastrous and fatal for organisations.

I can't help but narrate such a story I witnessed being scripted! 

Sun Like Nowhere Else

The story unfolds in the most unbelievably beautiful settings of the backwaters in God’s Own country. To believe, one has to experience the morning sun, reflecting itself in grandeur over the still waters of the Punnamada, an extension of Vembanad Lake. It is refreshing to the soul, like nowhere else. As the dusk cloaks the lake, flares of the refinery in the far distance, a stark reminder of the pollutants we spew, gives another side of life.

The Front Office

I arrived at the front office of the reputed resort after prior intimation and having provided the required documents online. I reached as per the schedule intimated. However, the front office was vacant. I had to look for the executives. Little while, not one but three of them emerged from the room behind.

Once they arrived, they asked me for my documents. I replied that I had already forwarded those except photo ids which I had refused to give online. While the executives busied themselves rummaging through a pile of documents, I went off to park my car as valet parking facilities had been discontinued due to covid. It took me a while to find space and park. Though I was the only guest to check in at that time, it still took them time to successfully ‘excavate’ my documents and complete the formalities of check-in. Clearly all that pre-check in calls and intimation of arrival time for fast smooth check-in remained on paper. 

Their inefficiency, cost us the customary reception and our welcome drink.

Was it an oversight; an inadvertent error of a few youngsters enjoying themselves at the cost of work or deeper malaise, deteriorating work ethics; lack of oversight? 

The Restaurant

The most important element of any vacation, after 'location', is dining experience. Thus, one of the key departments of any resort is the food and beverage Department, visible to all as the resort restaurant.

A good restaurant stands out from others with its range of spread, quality of food, hygiene, ambiance and the quality of service. Each good restaurant develops a consistent signature quality. Over time, this signature becomes its USP.

Punctuality is a key element of service. When the board outside clearly indicates that the restaurant will be open from 7:30 AM for breakfast, it requires the first batch of the mandated spread laid out and the staff to be at station, ready to receive the first guest latest by 7:30 AM. The room should have been aired well, lights and fans or air conditioners functional. Tables should have been laid with clean tablemats, cutlery and crockery and stewards of the morning shift at stations with welcome smiles.

Incomplete spread even at 8:15 AM and staff trickling in well after 8 o'clock, as a matter of practice, for breakfast engagement at 7:30 AM and no one to question is clear indication of deep-rooted rot. An order from the live kitchen counter when served dead cold and flies perched fearlessly on the platters say a lot about the management. Coffee in burnt milk clearly shows the quality controls in place. The extent to which the rot had already been internalised became evident when concerned individuals did nothing about the issues flagged. 

No attempt to correct it and not even an apology! Surely these just couldn’t be random instances of oversight. The rot was real. 

An Oasis

It is not that everything was bad. There were oases in the desert of insensitive incompetence.

The ‘activity department’ seemed to be purpose driven. They made sure anyone who came around was engaged.

Housekeeping did justice to the brand image. The efficiency with which issues brought to their notice was attended to is commendable. Once the issue was settled, feedback from the guest was taken by those higher in the chain of housekeeping. It clearly showed that the organisational system caters for oversight and redressal mechanisms. Some seemed to hold it dear, while others had no fear. 

Oversight Mechanisms

All organisations create oversight mechanisms to promote functional efficiency and organisational growth. Oversight structures are subsumed in organisational hierarchy and come with clear enunciations of authority, responsibility and accountability. When effective, it reduces the probability of instances of oversight, builds better controls and improves productivity. 

Process of oversight normally involves continuous evaluation and periodic reviews of performances against standards expected and well-defined parameters, by and through channels of reporting. It includes aspects of organisational feedbacks that finally result in differential growth amongst employees. Customer feedback, especially in hospitality and service organisations, is one tool that oversight mechanism heavily relies upon, but often distorted.  

Eliciting Feedback

It has become a practice to elicit favourable feedbacks at the time of check out. The process is so well ‘crafted’ that the guest checking out is ‘subtly managed’ into giving ratings better than what he or she would have given, if left free. This practice has become rampant amongst almost all service providers. 

This actually is the “most unkindest” cut that can be inflicted by employees on the organisation. It actually destroys from its very roots, any meaningful feedback from patrons. A managed feedback not only hides systemic flaws, it reinforces failure and accelerates disintegration. Unfortunately, when quality is blindly quantified and wilfully distorted at source, the soul of true feedback is dead; buried alive. 

Modern Don Quixote

Leader of an organisation who insulates himself or herself from flaws and problems, relying on manufactured feedback is like the foolish captain of a ship, happy seeing the bow rise, ignorant of the stern taking in water. Elicited feedbacks can bloat egos, but do little to stem the rot. Leaders, who create and perpetuate such an organisational culture and thrive on such make-believe spectacles are modern-day Don Quixotes busy transforming their organisation into ‘Rocinante’ the half-starved horse.

As incompetence becomes the norm, discontent ripples over and organisations disintegrate. Don Quixotes can feign gallop on the gasping Rocinante  till the ground gives way.

PREDICTIONS OF A BLOOM AFTER GLOOM

There is Sun Even Behind The Darkest Cloud

Predictions ?

"Are these your predictions for the world? An interesting private message I got, in response to my mail on my article, “Covid-19- Shape of things to come”[1]. What I wrote, under "Change for Sure", is how I feel the world would emerge post COVID.  Amidst predictions of doom and gloom,I see the post-covidian world boom and bloom.

 I have reasons.

Embedded in The Problem Rest its Solutions

It was 1976 and ‘board exam’ was around the corner. Cheating was, neither smart nor cool. Moderation non-existent and application questions in plenty, inadequate preparation guaranteed failure. I was struggling with theorems of congruent triangles and its applications. I was, and still am, miserable at memorising by rote. Coincidence or act of God, I saw EN Prince, my batch mate revising ‘congruent triangles’. I sought help. While explaining application of the theorem, he said "Look carefully, you can find the solution within the problem". Too young to realise how profound the statement is, teenagers both, we saw in it nothing beyond a technique to answer. 

In the journey of life, it helped me weather many a storm.

Viral Campaign!

Societies across the world are struggling to contain the raging pandemic. The virus has found its vector to reach even Amazon jungles. Hundreds of thousands have already been infected.In due course, COVID will reach each one of us. Lock down will not stop but will certainly slow it down..

With medical services overwhelmed, a hundred thousand is already dead. Sadly, many more will die.Most of us will remain asymptomatic, some will suffer a little and few others would need intensive care but eventually Integral and herd immunity will save most of us.

With world economy so entwined, nobody remains untouched. Assembly lines have fallen silent, capacities idle, services unutilised, orders cancelled, loans un-serviced, unemployment sky rockets and markets are as good as dead. Amidst unprecedented human displacement, world is filled with suspicious uncertainty as rumours rage unabated.

Yet, emerge we will, albeit transformed. History is proof. 

Global Afflictions and Outcomes 

The plague of AD 541, the first recorded pandemic, killed till there was ‘no one left to die’. The most afflicted were labourers. Defying Justinian orders, workers demanded double and triple wages, bringing down wealth disparities. Then, population surged and disparities resurfaced with vengeance. 

The Bubonic plague (1347-1351), seemed like ‘end of the world. Resultant shortage of labour, despite the crown’s ‘Ordinance of Labour’, doubled income of the unskilled, reduced income disparity and drove down real estate value. Soon, it was, as if nothing had happened. 

The Spanish flu of 1918 that killed 25 to 50 million people was not any different. 

The great depression of 1929, wiped out 15% of world GDP in 43 months, shrank international trade, busted banks, contracted economies, generated unemployment and created unrest. The Indian freedom struggle officially commenced on December 31, 1929, with Pandit Nehru unfurling the tricolour and declaring complete independence as the goal of Indian National Congress. It also triggered the civil disobedience movement. The recession of 2008 triggered by American subprime crisis, bled stock markets, wiped out many MSMEs, crippled industries and rendered millions jobless. Efficient handling of the crisis helped government of the day in India, ride back to power. 

Pandemics, recessions and global crises also trigger inventions, innovations and interventions. While Keynesian initiatives by governments stimulate consumer demand and revitalise economies, entrepreneurship mushrooms and blooms. Unfortunately, social disruption and generalised mistrust associated with pandemic conditions, evident even today, impact individuals, societies and conduct of business. 

Impact 2020 Fatal Casualties 

COVID -19, unlike previous pandemics, will spread faster and reach farther. Connected world makes it inevitable. Despite overwhelmed medical facilities, COVID is unlikely to cause as many deaths as the first two. Indians, blessed with higher levels of integral immunity are likely to suffer much lesser fatal casualties. Mere survival promises opportunities. 

Exodus 

As countries locked borders and expatriates frantically tried to return, world witnessed large scale evacuation. India also witnessed domestic displacement, mostly of migrant labourers, on a scale ‘never-seen-before’. While previous pandemics eroded economies by depleting farm labour, COVID crippled the economy by forcing closure of businesses and migration of skilled, semiskilled and unskilled labour. It will be naive to believe that migrant labourers will return any time soon and things will pick up from where it was left. 

Home bound migration doesn't mean that agricultural sector will benefit. All migrant labourers, back home, cannot be absorbed by domestic farming. Large number of them will find themselves out of work. Added to this will be the load of foreign returnees.  This unexpected convergence can also create food shortages. Such conditions are ideal to seed social unrest. Planners must be wary of such eventualities. 

Size Zero? 

Covid made ‘work from home’ an acceptable medium of organisational interaction. While companies saved from reduced infrastructural and operational costs it could also have improved productivity. Though it temporarily assured continuation of existing livelihood for those on its pay-rolls, heartless it may sound, it exposes weak links and gives organisations opportunities to right-size. Right-sizing is only a humane synonym for manpower reduction. Survival now necessitates jettisoning baggage.

Companies may sugar-coat termination with ‘furlough’ and short ‘garden leave’. As situation looks up, they will hire, but rarely re-hire. Hiring and staffing is likely to see a paradigm shift. Focussed on core-competencies and profitability, companies will look at ‘size-zero’ structures and outsource non-core activities. This is likely to present a new set of opportunities. Angel funding is also likely to surge. Reorienting and retraining will be the buzz word. 

Forex: Torrent to Trickle 

Lakhs of people employed abroad could return jobless, unsure of the flight back. Significant part of forex reserves was piled up by these very people. World’s highest flow of forex could soon become a trickle precipitating resource crunch. This could become a serious concern for the economy. The well accounted and production-based work culture they are accustomed to, if absorbed, can increase domestic productivity manifold. It can be the catalyst to actualise the “Make-in India” programme. The emerging market will be shaped by Covidian dynamics. Superficial bonhomie and camaraderie apart, covid, will trigger new market realignments. It presents us with both opportunities and challenges. If agile, India can grab markets abroad and even fill HR vacuums abroad. 

Adapt to Thrive

It is not only the manufacturing sector which has been hard hit. Inexplicably linked, each sector of the economy, has felt the impact.  Some will perish but others would survive. Those which adapt to emerging conditions would survive to thrive.

Sky and Sea

Restrictions, on international and domestic travel, might have grounded aircrafts and held ships at sea, but cargo still moves. Fuel and maintenance costs have plummeted. Up in the air, hovering costs have vanished and carbon footprints obliterated. At ports ships berth and leave faster having unloaded and loaded. But these capital-intensive investments are bleeding from ‘unkindest’ of covidian cuts. Survival and profitability would call for well-crafted consolidations and collaborations, mostly government supported. Sky is the limit and fathomless the opportunities.

Land

Land movement is the most affected. While human movement is still restricted, essentials continue to move, in fact, faster while white goods have been relegated. Prioritisation and categorisation of goods for interstate movement is redefining logistics. Source-to-destination containers are making logistics easier and faster. After initial panic that emptied out stores, shelves are full. Retailing has taken a new shape. Home delivery is the new normal. Households having experienced it under restricted mobility will not shun it even if controls are removed. There is no end to opportunities for logisticians.

Services

With, people mostly home bound, tour operators, mobility aggregators and hospitality providers have been hit hard. It will take, more than a while, before business gets back to usual. “Adapt’ will be the new success mantra and ingenuity the key. Those who can reorient, repackage and relaunch services fastest could have the early bird advantage. Others could learn from their ‘experience’.

It is also clear that nothing will remain untouched by COVID. everything will be redefined post COVID. Remotely connected function will be the accepted norm. Education, medicine, governance and every possible service will see paradigm shifts, all based on connectivity. it also offers chance for governments to individually track each citizen. The avenues are countless, advantages immense and if misused terrible.

Connectivity Providers

The ones who will dig gold will be those providing connectivity. With physical movements curtailed and likely to remain so, data connectivity will be the new gold mine. Market could coronate 5G. With digital transactions being the norm, business and business-related activities would primarily be transacted online. The potential is unimaginable.

Catapult

This is not the first-time mankind is encountering a catastrophe. We have seen and weathered many.This too, “we shall overcome”.  Economies too have experienced setback before. Each setback was like a catapult. It pulls economies back only to launch them even higher into the stratosphere.

‘Covidian Crisis’ is no different. It’s a sea of opportunities awaiting explorers. 

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[1] COVID-19- Shape of things to come, jacobshorizon.blogspot.com

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.

Seeding Happiness to Enhance Productivity and Harvest Profits

An Undefined Emotion

Hysterical crowds at a rock concert and the ones swaying to the chants at a guru’s discourse have one thing in common. They all are in search of happiness. In fact, human beings, even with minimal aspirations, are all perpetually in pursuit of some sort of happiness. Happiness is amongst the most extensively researched subjects related to human well-being. Scholars have delved into innumerable aspects of happiness to declare what they think were convincing proofs, means and methods of securing happiness. Proven or not, we know beyond doubt that happiness is one of the most important ingredients of well-being and consequently influences everything an individual does. A universally accepted definition still eludes happiness despite extensive research in everything connected to it. However, universally people believe that happiness comes from within.  Happiness remains as subjective and vague an entity as it was, ever since it was first humanly experienced. Aware, awakened or not, everyone persists in their efforts to achieve happiness and pursue what they perceive would provide happiness.

Quantifiable Triggers and Subjective Experience

Happiness is generally associated with satiation of material needs or change in condition towards a desired state. This assumption, partly explains the fleeting and comparative nature of happiness. Purchase of a new car could trigger happiness, but it ebbs away over time. It could also plummet instantaneously seeing a colleague with a better car, newly purchased.  One’s own car, a source of happiness till then ceases to be so. Similarly, happiness experienced getting a jump in career could vanish when one realises that a colleague, considered less worthy, has secured an equal or better raise. While, even a basic meal could flood the poverty stricken with happiness, connoisseurs could remain stubbornly immune to happiness even at the most elaborately laid out fare. Happiness, though visibly associated with material possession or matching one’s expectations in each of these illustrations, is something intrinsically beyond mere physical possessions, change in conditions or relative success.

Behavioural scientists have linked happiness to various aspects like career, health, family, society, etc also. It has been seen that the intensity and longevity of happiness experienced by an individual varied depending upon the perceived level, achieved in relation to his expectations and aspirations. It is also widely accepted that, given the same inputs, intensity of happiness experienced and expressed varies from person to person. This is dictated by one’s choice of how happy one should be. Even those culturally conditioned to believe that being happy could invite unhappiness, do experience and express happiness in various forms.

Irrespective of the source of happiness, clinical studies have convincingly proved that happiness is associated with presence of biochemicals like serotonin, dopamine and oxytocin in the body. While presence of these can be ensured by chemical intervention, such drug induced stimuli have devastating effects and produce euphoria that is momentary and drug dependent.

Despite being associated with and triggered by quantifiable, measurable and comparable aspects like material possessions, career, health, family and society, happiness essentially remains subjective, ambiguous and personal.

Path to Sustainable Happiness

Happiness associated with material acquisitions and changing conditions are proven to be afflicted with short shelf life. As one gets accustomed to the changed conditions or has flaunted enough the acquisitions of creature comforts, happiness ebbs away. But happiness triggered by recognition, relevance and respect (Triple R) are seen to be durably useful. Since this source of happiness ends up in a reinforcing, reassuring positive cycle, individuals naturally tend to commit themselves to perform better and contribute more where needs of ‘Triple R’ are continually met.  Though inherent to an individual’s personal and social life, these are predominantly at play at his work place. Interestingly ‘Triple R’, enjoyed by an individual at his workplace easily spreads over to other spheres of his personal life.

Monetising Happiness

An organisational culture, where ‘Triple R’ is in abundance, can be crafted by human resource experts with vision. Managements mistakenly equate ‘Triple R’ with remunerations, designations and authority. Though these are essential to organisational existence and individuals acquiring more of it derive happiness from it, there are limits beyond which these can’t be granted and sustained. An organisation can have only one CEO. It can create innumerable verticals and can have one head for each. It can pay absurdly large compensation packages. It can assign tremendous authority to various individuals. But going beyond a certain limit will be detrimental to the very existence of the organisation.

Recognition relevance and respect exist on a different plane from everything else. It touches the very heart of dignified human existence. It doesn’t need heavy fiscal outlays. It just needs understanding and deft handling that visibly manifests itself in equality and objectivity.

The challenge for those entrusted with creating and maintaining such an OC would be to find ways to continually provide conditions where individuals experience incrementally increasing relevance, periodically receive inputs of recognition and believe that respect has been earned.

Way Forward

The fact that happiness comes along with a clutch of by-products, should excite human resource experts, interested in organisational success and growth. Happiness besides providing a sense of physical well-being, enhances self-worth, creates a sense of purpose, encourages optimism and strengthens commitment to the cause resulting in higher individual productivity. This can easily be channelised to further organisational aims and harvest operational profits. Disengaged from remunerations, designations and authority, organisations need to innovative to provide ‘Triple R’

Since it is natural for an individual to pursue happiness, it is easier to motivate him to pursue such activities than drive him for remunerations.  If an individual’s pursuit of happiness and organisational goals are coterminous or made even seemingly so, he would naturally be aligned with the organisational path.

The resultant is a win-win situation both for the individual and organisation.