Dear Editor,
For a brief moment I thought that I was dreaming, until I realised that it was the BBC’s programme on ‘Global Business’ which had penetrated my restive sleep in the wee hours of the morning.
Being interviewed was the Managing Director of the multi-unit electrical manufacturer HPL Ltd of India, with 69 branch offices and a workforce of five thousand, accounting for his success.
Too modestly, he explained that it was particularly an enlightened human resource policy that included the development of a comprehensive and imaginative communication network, which engaged his employees, severally and individually. The creative system of ongoing conversations resulted in the latter being involved in the decision-making process at every level.
He disarmingly suggested that not only did he not know everything, but that it was the employees who in fact knew more than he, since they were the effective producers of the company’s range of high quality equipment.
His managers played the role of ‘transformers,’ sharing information on an ongoing basis in a system that demanded feedback.
The culture of the organisation which everyone embraced and upheld, was one of mutual accountability – managers accepting that they were as accountable to their workers as the latter were to them.
The Chief Executive emphasised that the key to the process was building trust. Trust, he said, was the essential ingredient which energised the whole range of operations, excited high morale, and resulted in the consistently acclaimed level of productivity that sustained the company’s internationally acknowledged success.
This Managing Director came across as remarkably humble, as he countered the interviewer’s congratulations by reminding the latter that the management approach he described was by no means original; it however made good sense.
I woke up, reflecting on our own environment, and could only conclude that what I heard was a dream after all – a management approach we can only dream of! But this is not virtual reality. Quite the contrary, Lalit Seth, as one of your correspondents pleaded for recently, is a real man and leader.
Yours faithfully,
E B John
