[warrioraks]

Originally Posted by mohansrides

Would love to hear diverse perspectives on this.
Cheers

As per a very famous book called ‘Sapiens’, the key reason for success of humans vs other species is our ability to co-operate flexibly across large groups. The role of gossip in enabling this is paramount.

Now extrapolate that and it should not come as a surprise that the same pattern reflects in decision-making processes of large organisations. Where most things appears to be designed around commitees.

As I grow older, the realisation that humans are not logical-beings keeps dawning on me nearly every day due to one incident or another. Our decision making processes today are a very accurate reflection of that.

[Mystic]

Let me chip in to add some of my experiences in the so called corporate world meetings and the decisions coming out of such meetings with people who don’t have any personal commitment to the business . In most of the meetings, hours are lost and minutes are kept.

Commitment is one very important word one needs to address during the tenure of doing any job for that matter. I remember in IBM, USA, we had annual appraisals and the managers measured the metrics in terms of a number called PBC. PBC means personal business commitment. I happened to get 1 during my time and what this means is that one is in the top 1 % of the entire business workforce in the company. The bonus is directly related to this. To just give you a perspective, PBC 1 guy gets 3 times the annual bonus of PBC 3 guy.

Why I stressed on PBC is that I honestly don’t see this in most of the employees now a days. Nobody takes work as worship. It is just a place to get pay slip to pay EMIs.

There are always exceptions in my above statement and I am lucky to have just exceptional bosses in my career. For eg, I once asked my boss in an open meeting with all team members whether it is ethical to ask employee to book more than 8 hours per day in time sheet which is in turn is passed to the client for payment. She answered me that “ You book hours ONLY for what you have worked and DONOT work for more than what you have put in timesheets. We hardly see such people now a days. These people have a deep domain experience in their respective field like automotive, utilities etc and have a vision of what is going to happen after 100 years in the market in their specialty. Just such people’s presence makes all the difference in corporate meetings.

I remember when seeing a movie Pearl Harbour when USA was planning to put a nuclear bomb in Japan and in one of the top level meetings, the President says that the people who actually execute the order from top are the lieutenants on ground who take no nonsense and complete the job as per the higher directives meticulously even sacrificing their lives in the process. Hence, the top management must be extremely careful in their decisions in the leadership meetings.

In the present service industry, I get frustrated at some service companies when I don’t get value for the money I paid. Mahatma Gandhi once said that “Customer is the most important person on our premises. We are not doing a favour to him but he is doing a favour to us and our very existence is because of him” This philosophy needs to imbedded in team meetings by leadership but unfortunately the leadership has no time for such Gyan and are in the rat race to reach targets set by the company.

[srini1785]

I have nothing much to add. I come from an engineering industry background and here meetings, though not uncommon, are not the way forward. If at all there are some meetings they only spell bad news. The thread however reminded me of this episode of my most favorite comedian, Jaspal Bhatti.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WiW9WiWV0RY

[Malyaj]

My (more than) two paise on this subject:

It's been 21 years since I started working. Out of these apart from the last 6 years, the rest were as a typical corporate coolie. Let me tell you with full confidence, that for every decision that you find stuck in dry cement, there are 5 that go through. The difference is that the other 5 never reach the table and are quietly executed, or disguised as routine, which do not merit discussion. And surprise surprise! The bosses/CEOs are aware of it. Sometimes they themselves do not like matters being brought to them. For a boss the confidence in a decision is directly proportional to the discreetness with which it has been carried out. It sends the message that people are in control of what they are doing.

Now there is another reason that decision gets delayed, and it has nothing to do with empowerment. It is because the proposing side is not clear of what they want. Decisions on purchase often get dragged because the team proposing is not able to clearly quantify the need for the purchase. Many times we need a software, or need to outsource something, or improve a facility, organise a customer meet, but we are not able to quantify the benefits. To be honest, it's not always easy. We just have a gut feel that it is needed. If you go grovelling like a pet dog and make it sound like the approval would be a favour, you won't get anywhere. If you thump the table and say with confidence that enough is enough and you need to change a few things, and change it fast, most decision makers will take notice.

I remember when I was in my mid 20s, I was working as a business analyst. We were proposing that we expand that capacity of one our manufacturing units to cater to a new segment. Given the size of the parent company, the investment required was peanuts. Yet, 5 years later when I left the company, the proposal hadn't been approved. During these 5 years, the 'new product' to be offered changed half a dozen times, the addressable market size shrunk and expanded by a factor of 10x (no exaggeration) with every iteration and every new 'GM saab' that came. I was only an excel sheet pusher that time, if something like this happened now, I would throw the laptop out of the window. In hindsight I feel that the bosses weren't very clear about what they wanted. They wanted money for a new kind of machine every time. This game of snakes and ladders was tolerated because the parent company was enormously cash rich.

[AirbusCapt]

The biggest culprits are the managers trained in the art of MDN (management by doing nothing). Most Indian managers are trained in this "technique" of management. They seem to relish in promoting meetings, discussions and the drill with very little in terms of output and actual implementation. Classic example being the babudom school of thought. All talk, passing of files and proposals, chai pe charcha and general whiling away of time. In this senario if a executive wants to take real decisions he/she will have to break this inertia and step on fragile egos before anything gets done.
Indian management is also poor in actual decision making, the sheer no if meetings highlight this point, the more the talking the lesser the doing.

[aargee]

Although I don't consider my post to be of anything valuable contribution, pls allow sharing my thoughts on the lines of unwanted meetings which most people consider as quintessentially constructive which is actually counter productive. I'm not saying all meetings are unproductive, but when, where, what to use is not really known to most folks {just like we all learn to talk by the age of 2, but we still learn when, where & what to talk for a lifetime}

I think it was Tim Ferris or Brian Tracy, not sure who mentioned, what can be accomplished using a phone call or a quick 5 min chat or an email should be done in that mode of communication. Unfortunately that doesn't work, atleast in lower level to middle level management; one of the primary reason I think is the below apt statement:

Originally Posted by warrioraks

As per a very famous book called ‘Sapiens’, the key reason for success of humans vs other species is our ability to co-operate flexibly across large groups...humans are not logical-beings...

We all go with "connections"; the connection is based on emotions; the days before Uber, Asian Paints, Swiggy, Big Basket, & Dunzo, we all went with what our friends & neighbors recommended; we went with their words, placed our trust with them, the trust formed due to the connections & emotions. Now we place our trust with large organizations, a virtual entity.

Originally Posted by mohansrides

The point being made was that today's corporate environments are drowning in meetings and that we have to find ways to reduce the scourge that meetings have turned into

Sir, absolutely right; when I tried practicing what I read, the feedback given to me was, just take the phone & talk with people to get things done. Unfortunately & contrary to what the book says, it is working here!! I was able to get many things done over a short call & most importantly it also helps clears many misunderstandings. Not that email or meetings don't help {for instance, we had an hour's call scheduled last night, it got over in less than 13 minutes because the invitee did not consider few key stakeholders from a different company}

Originally Posted by V.Narayan

Along with empowerment are needed two other components - first a willingness to accept that the other chap will not do things exactly the way you would; and second that sometimes cock-ups will happen. Don't crucify a sincere effort if a cock-up occurs. Be unafraid to fail

Originally Posted by Samurai

The person who wants something is rarely the guy who can approve it. At most he/she can recommend and then pray...Give a fixed budget to the Engineering department and let them choose their vendors and negotiate the contracts on merit. Then the vendor is dealing with a decision maker from day one, and the goals of the stakeholders are met much more efficiently

Hello Sirs, this is what author Gary Hame tells in the book Humanocracy that the age of bureaucracy is over. They talk about some 7-8 companies {Nucor Steel, MorningStar Ketchup, Haier Applicances etc} that has shifted to empowering employees to take a decision.

Most amazing story that I came across was from Tim Ferris. He mentions this in one of his books {I think it was 4 hour work week, not sure} on how he transformed from being always busy to enjoying life while making his income. He found that his 80% of income came from just 20% of his clients & those 20% clients were always satisfied with his work. So one morning he fired 80% of his Clients & focused to take care of those 20% of them. After which he not only had nearly the same amount of income but had all the time in the world to do things he wanted to do.

Just like you said, he empowered his frontline employees to make mistakes up to $400 a month & to his amazement, he was not only able to save the $400 in long run, but also retain quality clients.

Originally Posted by subraiyr

At the end of the day - if you are in a corporate environment, your superior should have the mindset of exploring. If not, you will end up with committee culture and meeting mania

Well said Sir; either the top brass should have the mindset of exploring or allow the staffs to give a free hand, otherwise we're all struck with bureaucracy from the era of second industrial revolution.