Monday, June 20, 2011

Perception clarity


In most of the companies today, people are challenged with operating without the perception clarity they really need to know. In fact they truly deserve. It is necessary for senior management to provide clarity about goals and objectives of the company to one and all.  Now a day’s companies are compelled to change their plans and road map periodically and this is something that is market driven. Today at all levels, had it been project development, production, business development, sales and marketing or HR, everyone is expected to work smarter and faster and get the “projected” growth figure on every 13 work weeks (Quarter).

I for one feel that shaping perception of all existing as well as new employees is something that can provide them clear vision and help them align their efforts and produce much better results in expected time. It sounds easy however the hard fact is that middle managers, line managers and sometimes senior managers are not able to provide vision clarity which results into wrong external communication and loss of good opportunities. Many times it is also observed that senior managers and even line managers are so busy with their own task that they unknowingly ignore this important activity. Even if they provide perception clarity on new goals, it is never done with required detailing or by providing a deeper understanding of how and why clients really connect with our company, services-products.

For new recruits, they are simply asked to read company’s rule book, go through vision and mission statement, browse company website and that’s it. Most of the mid-sized companies today neither take this internal training as important part of the induction process nor do they have mechanism that can effectively communicate what are the company strengths, weaknesses, current opportunities and current threats. It is necessary to shape their perceptions and provide the required knowledge and directions for their result effectiveness.

Talent has always been viewed as MS excel based formula for growth. If you are increasing sales by X%, you need to hire Y% resources in sales team. If you are increasing your projects by N%, you need to hire Z% more resources in development / production team. As per my recent experience and observation, majority of the companies are found, NOT TO HAVE LUXERY of keep recruiting more and more employees and achieve growth.  Current economic conditions and short product / services life cycle are also some of the reasons. That is exactly why everyone is expecting rapid growth from good mediocre and low level of resources. Simply adding resources is not an option. Companies should focus more and more on shaping up their perceptions in sync with the company road map, growth plans and also provide all the necessary enablers for performing their job in best possible manner. After that one can expect targeted results. Companies should also focus more on aligning individual skills with the work to be done as per scale and capabilities.

I for one have always believed in that “No company is great. It is the work culture of the company that makes it great”.

Thanks & Regards
BHARTESH SAGAR