An hour of watching news on TV will leave you with a feeling of resentment; there is very little to cheer it would appear. Why even , the ardent Indian cricket fan's shoulders have sagged after a dismal show recently. Throw in the news of the mysterious disappearance of the Boeing 777 and you have a motley of well..."Breaking News" to choose from.
No surprise then, that along with the e-commerce, TV news consumption is growing at breakneck speed while the brakes have been put on economic progress of the country. There is an air of despondency just about everywhere.Without a shadow of doubt, one of the chief reasons for the slowdown is the structural impediments in the form of infrastructure(the lack of it). That notwithstanding, the problem of low productivity of the employed work force cannot be understated. Gallup recently conducted a survey in India measuring the job satisfaction of Indians; level of stickiness they call it and the results showed that over the last ten years, the level of dissatisfaction has gone up by close to 10 times. While dissatisfaction stemming from lack of jobs is understandable, the manifold increase in dissatisfaction levels of those with jobs is disconcerting.
It is also worth observing that India's engaged workforce as a percentage of total workforce at 9% is less than half of the engaged workforce percentage in developed markets. What is more worrying is that the percentage of highly disenchanted workforce in India is as high as 31%, higher than developed nations as well as emerging nations.
Those enlightened souls who do not believe in stats can look at their friend groups transcending companies/sectors. I am confident the results will concur to a large extent with the above findings.
So now that the hypothesis has been corroborated, let us delve further. There could be various reasons for the prevailing disillusionment. It would be fair to not paint every disenchanted soul with the same brush. For some it could be an issue with work being assigned to which does not match up to his/her expectation. For some other, working style might not be in sync with the boss or the company. For another, it may be a feeling that his/her effort is not appreciated, given the constraints. There are many other reasons.
Most of the reasons have one thing in common -a lack of leadership. Unfortunately, the chasm between the superior and the subordinate is deeply rooted in our culture. While some would point to benefits for the organization from this chasm, there is a notion that a lack of communication stems from this distance. This lack of communication between the boss and his/her subordinate, if it exists,can be detrimental to the organization. We see several instances of strategists at the top coming out with great strategies, only to see nothing or very little happening on the ground. Why? It is the disconnect between the planner and the doer, the strategist and the implementer, the boss and the subordinate. Companies with strong leadership do not allow such scenarios to develop. Pareto's principle is applicable here as well -80% of the organization's value add is done by 20% of its workforce( you can make it 70-30 or 65-35 but the point stands) While it is not possible to derive the same output from every employee, it is worth making an effort. That is what managers are there for, are n't they? Ask yourself this, is your boss adding value to you? If the answer is yes, you are lucky. If the answer is no, you ought to be looking for a change.
To conclude, I quote a statement which I felt was very simple yet powerful -
The difference between a manager and a leader : A manager gets people to do what needs to be done while a leader gets people to want to do what needs to be done. Managers push. Leaders pull. Managers command. Leaders communicate.' - Warren Bennis.
We need leaders, NOW!
It is also worth observing that India's engaged workforce as a percentage of total workforce at 9% is less than half of the engaged workforce percentage in developed markets. What is more worrying is that the percentage of highly disenchanted workforce in India is as high as 31%, higher than developed nations as well as emerging nations.
Those enlightened souls who do not believe in stats can look at their friend groups transcending companies/sectors. I am confident the results will concur to a large extent with the above findings.
So now that the hypothesis has been corroborated, let us delve further. There could be various reasons for the prevailing disillusionment. It would be fair to not paint every disenchanted soul with the same brush. For some it could be an issue with work being assigned to which does not match up to his/her expectation. For some other, working style might not be in sync with the boss or the company. For another, it may be a feeling that his/her effort is not appreciated, given the constraints. There are many other reasons.
Most of the reasons have one thing in common -a lack of leadership. Unfortunately, the chasm between the superior and the subordinate is deeply rooted in our culture. While some would point to benefits for the organization from this chasm, there is a notion that a lack of communication stems from this distance. This lack of communication between the boss and his/her subordinate, if it exists,can be detrimental to the organization. We see several instances of strategists at the top coming out with great strategies, only to see nothing or very little happening on the ground. Why? It is the disconnect between the planner and the doer, the strategist and the implementer, the boss and the subordinate. Companies with strong leadership do not allow such scenarios to develop. Pareto's principle is applicable here as well -80% of the organization's value add is done by 20% of its workforce( you can make it 70-30 or 65-35 but the point stands) While it is not possible to derive the same output from every employee, it is worth making an effort. That is what managers are there for, are n't they? Ask yourself this, is your boss adding value to you? If the answer is yes, you are lucky. If the answer is no, you ought to be looking for a change.
To conclude, I quote a statement which I felt was very simple yet powerful -
The difference between a manager and a leader : A manager gets people to do what needs to be done while a leader gets people to want to do what needs to be done. Managers push. Leaders pull. Managers command. Leaders communicate.' - Warren Bennis.
We need leaders, NOW!
Posts
