Culture of an organisation

Conflicts are a part of any organisation but what can make life easier is having a culture in the organisation which sets the atmosphere for resolving the conflicts in an amiable and agreeable manner. Balaji Pasamarthy, Chief Catalyst, Businessgyan talks about his personal experiences and how Edward De Bono's tools have helped him in dealing with conflicts in his organisations.....

Excerpts:

I became an entrepreneur as I did not like the culture in the company where I was working, a large company, with typical corporate culture, where the use of power was very high to get results. Coercion and Power were used, to get work done, for e.g. if you don't do this, this won't happen. I changed the dynamics, during my stint in the company, I was very effective and managed to increase the sales, in spite of a merger happening.

When I started my own company, I wanted to change all that. Have an environment that was less threatening and would be a pleasure to work in, apart from being able to grow the business. In one of my earlier panel discussions I spoke about ‘Open organisation', which we have been practicing in our organisation. This quest led me to research a lot, and read a lot of books and apply the learning's in our organisation. One of the best authors I've read is Edward De Bono, which gave me a lot of tools to use in my company.

Edward DeBono gives an example, He gives a situation of an accident, which is a hit and run case. The police catch a person who owns a white colour car, so there's defense lawyer and a prosecutor. The Prosecutor has many witnesses who have seen the White colour car causing the accident, and the defense has a lot of witnesses who say, it's not a White car, but a Black car. Now there's a heated argument, is it possible to resolve the conflict, the judge is a mute spectator, who listens to both sides and gives the verdict in favour of the side who has a stronger argument.

It's a mind game, imagine if the car was neither White nor Black; half of the car is coloured White and the other half is painted Black. In such a case two people arguing on their own stand, can't get the truth established. Explaining the concept of ‘parallel thinking', Edward De bono says, the prosecutor needs to get the witnesses to answer specific questions like, on which side of the road they were standing, from where they stood what was the colour of the car etc. can actually start the dialogue happening. 

In our company, if a situation is likely to create conflict due to personality or Ego, we get them thinking together. One of the two people involved in the situation may be against the idea, but for the moment they think together. For a few moments both think of the positive about the situation and for a moment think of the negative; for a couple of minutes think of an interesting outcome and both think of the opportunities arising out of the situation. The ideas which emerge from this brain storming session are owned by both, so the acceptance and implementation of the idea also becomes that much more effective.

The other concept adopted is the little more complex - the ‘Six Thinking Hats'; which also builds on the same concept. Here we start by thinking of the feelings that we have, the new ideas which will come, lets together examine the facts which is the White hat, both will think of the innovation and wild ideas i.e. the Green hat. The Green Hat lets you really talk without someone criticizing you for being stupid. It works very well once you get into the groove of thinking.

As I had seen a culture which brought out the worst in people, I wanted to create a culture which brings out the best in people.  Can we actually gain or earn respect, rather than getting it because of a position. In our company there are no designations, the only reason, why someone will respect you will be because you have earned it, by competence or by your ability to lead.

Lot of tension actually comes due to success, and success gets associated with increments, promotions and designations. What we are trying to attempt in our organisation is to encourage individuals to decide their future. There is no appraisal system, we provide transparency and there is sufficient amount of information. The important components required for a person to decide what he or she is worth are- what the company can afford and what he or she is worth as in market value. The individual himself knows all these and our job is only to say how well the company is doing and how the external situation is.

\We are also cultivating a culture where people can openly talk about issues, with out fear of being taken to task. I remember a story about Jawaharlal Nehru, who was a towering personality; he wrote a critical article about himself using a pseudonym, to provoke others to write something critical about him. It's because of people like him that our democracy is functioning.

The positives of an open culture are that people take ownership and responsibity to run the organization and it does not need too much management bandwidth to manage.

Balaji Pasumarthy was speaking at a Panel discussion organised by Businessgyan and TASMAC on the topic "Conflict Management"   

Compiled by consulting Correspondent, Mangal D Karnad for Businessgyan 

Issue BG99 June06