LEADING IN UNCERTAIN TIMES – 3

Mohan G Joshi

Behind the artificial entity are real lives with hopes and fears

For the law, a corporate entity is an “artificial person”. What gives life to that artificial person are real people, with real feelings. They are all now going through a phase of uncertainty brought on by the virus and the disruption it has caused. How a company is coping with the crisis is essentially a function of how the people are responding, most often under the influence of one or more leaders.

In the last post, we saw how a company picked out true leaders from the bosses, on the basis of how they fared in handling the crisis. While many may view it as sweepingly negative, the crisis has also had some positive effects, as my conversations with some industry leaders revealed.

More responsibility, faster decisions

Decision making used to be a slow process especially in this company that believes in democracy and participation. Over a period, that process defined certain core values and the boundaries of those decisions.

People here are now willingly assuming greater responsibility regardless of their position in the hierarchy. They are also taking decisions faster. Now, they do not go through the time-consuming participative process every time. At the same time, never do they compromise the core values of the organization.

While technology has become the ubiquitous medium for every interaction and transaction, it is also helping to reveal hidden talents and passions. It may not help the company much if the VP is an excellent cook, but if the shop floor manager reveals himself to be an out-of-the-box thinker who thrives in the face of problems, the organization would definitely want to formally make better use of his skills.

Empathy nurtures loyalty

Now that we are all in the same boat and technology has made it easier for us to connect and get work done, empathy must be at its peak, right? While that ought to be true of most companies, I think it depends on how keen the leadership is to refine and “humanize” their systems. That’s what I have learnt from my personal experience.

My laptop is manufactured by an MNC and has a glitch. Multiple calls to the support center yielded no result, until I connected to one person who seemed to have the time to hear me out. He requested me to capture the problem in a video. He also explained how to shoot the video and how to share it. After I sent it, he called up again to confirm receipt. He assured me a technician would call me and then come over to fix it.

While I am still waiting for the problem to be solved, I wonder if the leadership could have put some systems in place to identify persons like this who are willing to “own” a customer’s problem. And was there something they could do to give him enough support so that all his good work translated into action and reaffirmed loyalty? Like assigning each complaint to an identified person and confirming a date and time with the customer for the technician’s visit?

On the other hand, there is another MNC in Spain that told all its employees working from home that they could take two hours off, during working hours, to attend to the elderly and the children at home. Did they do the right thing? Should they have been more worried about “lost productivity”?

Leaders must look at every decision critically. Will it remove a pain point for a customer or an employee? Will it add value?

More than ever, this is the time to truly connect to others, one to one. Alone, we are helpless before the pandemic. Together, we can defang the virus.