Paradoxes at the Workplace

image courtesy www.evernote.com/pub/notna2000/Dilbert

Management’s paradox

• Shareholder’s expectations vs. Team’s expectations – shareholders always expect certain level of profitability and this at times is in direct conflict with management’s desire to invest in the organization and employees
• Invest first or Acquire first – the chicken and egg syndrome when the organization wants to add a new competency or capability. Does one build the team first and then acquire customers or acquire customers and then build the team

Manager’s paradox

• Organisation vs. team – Managers are faced with this paradox of having to balance the need of the organization and the individual aspirations of the team members
• Team member vs. self – When a manager has a high performer within the ranks, does he/she allow the individual to grow quickly at a faster rate than self. The other paradox is at what point does the manager resist taking credit for the work that the team does

Employee’s paradox

• Self vs. organization – an individual’s aspirations being sacrificed for the larger interest of the organization. How long would the individual stymie his/her ambition
• Self vs. team – when the individual’s performance begins to outweigh that of the rest of the team

Why do most ideas die even before they are born?

image courtesy www.evernote.com/pub/notna2000/Dilbert/

Ideas never die, often they are killed. Most of the times ideas are killed because of the following reasons:

• Most ideas die in the mind as they are never documented
• Lack of passion and confidence in the idea
• Current comfort of working on regular stuff limits in taking the idea forward
• Other priorities of normal day-to-day life does not allow one to focus on the idea (day-to-day grind at work defocuses one from the idea)
• Lack of conviction to prove idea in action
• Failure to look at the value generated to customer from the idea not just revenue from the customer

Can a framework substitute management?

Do we often overplay the importance of an “accepted and standardised” framework within the realm of management?

Management, simply put, is the act of getting people and resources together to accomplish desired goals and objectives. A framework is a structure that will aid and assist in the process of increasing customer value and optimizing goals. Every business across the world has a framework which works and it might not be documented well enough. For ex., Motorola adopted a management framework and they called it “Six Sigma” which was well articulated and then shared it publicly. Most organizations use that as they don’t want to reinvent the wheel.

In my view one should not force fit a program just because it is popular. It should always stem from an analysis of the needs and gaps required to be addressed within the organization. Another factor to be considered is the maturity level and stage of the journey of the organisation. If the need and the stage are right, these programs can be used in two ways:

• To enhance what is currently; not replace (to take the organization to a higher level of maturity)
• To validate the current framework – as there could be some improvement areas which can add value to the business approach

It is, however, imperative to make sure that the organization’s needs or gaps are well identified before embarking on any adoption of a framework so that it creates the right impact and yields desired results. Remember, management has to drive the business in the right direction, a framework will help to channelise the energies in this direction.