Some funda

I have come across Jim Collins - Good to Great way back in 2003. Since then I had been looking for indicators to identify great organizations.

As a training consultant I had an excellent opportunity to visit more than 100 diverse organizations located in different cities of India. During this time I compared and contrasted different companies and tried to see if there are significant differences.

One clear cut differentiator was - people. At great companies, people were sincere, committed, confident and had a sense of urgency. But there is definitely a causal ambiguity. Did people with above characteristics make the firm great or the firm made the people confident. I tried to relate it to my own experience.

I realized that there were times when I behaved like an average demotivated employee and times when I was radiating confidence and could make significant contributions. When I look back I realized that it was the firm that existed before I entered made an impact on me and my behavior after I joined the firm impacted others.

There are always bright people and then there are always difficult times. Bright people who are not interested in the big picture get quickly demotivated if things are not happening for them. But then 1 in 1000 there would be bright visionary and he is the one who can trigger a reversal in the atmosphere.

I have just finished reading a Mckinsey article titled - The link between profits and organizational performance, and the article also highlights simlar findings. One clear reinforcement this article helped make is that, the firm is a bigger stakeholder and needs to take proactive action.

But in reality I have observed that Managers including HR Managers expect that the employee should take initiative and try to make a contribution. I always argued that the organization should make a stronger effort and should have clear processes to get an employee in to a high performance mode.

I truly believe that every Manager should take responsibility not only to recruit good people but also to see that they move into the high performance mode quickly