India has
just seen a massive election with a transformative vote. Multiple parties
attempted discourses and debates through their organizations and leaders but
only a few eventually succeeded. Social
history teaches that logical discourse that appeals to broad masses determined
the enlightenment of societies and organizations. Similarly, business history
teaches us that organizations which are collaborative and communicative
internally and externally achieve sustainable success. Societies and
organizations require collaboration to succeed. Collaboration, in turn, needs
communication to succeed. Communication is based on points of view which are
exchanged in conversations or in writing. The success of communication, hence
that of collaboration and the success of societies and organizations is
dependent on the logic of views and their expression. Logic that is positive
and sublime, like that of peace and prosperity, leads to enlightened
development.
The adventurous
ability to lead a sunrise industry or the competitive ability to dominate a fragmented
market is based on the organizational ability to communicate within itself and with
the outside world. From a corporate logo that conveys a common identity and
purpose to business vision and strategy that convey a common theme, a viewpoint
is consistently expressed by businesses. These tend to be institutional
initiatives, well researched, well debated and well articulated. What adds to
the strength and sparkle is the productivity of communication across the
organization and within its broader ecosystem. Everyone has a point of view but
not every point of view would be logical. Every view deserves to be expressed
and listened to but rarely these processes are well accomplished; more people
tend to be keen to express than listen. Business organizations can take several
cues from political organizations on how organizational units can be
structured, and discourses and debates accomplished to achieve aligned
objectives.
Societies
and organizations
Societies
have several forums to communicate. In an electoral process, they vary from
door-to-door word-of-mouth communication to massive road shows involving
millions. Communication occurs through print as well as electronic media.
Cumulative impact of governance or opposition lies embedded in social psyche.
Yet, in a short span of one month, political parties are able to cover nearly a
billion people to influence transformative voting pattern. Success in such
marathon and daunting processes occurs through careful internal collaboration
and calibrated external communication. A simple theme becomes as important as a
complex manifesto and the style of communication becomes as important as
substance of communication. When political leaders singularly achieve such
mammoth tasks across nations there is no reason why managers and leaders should
ignore the powerful impact of collaboration and communication across
organizations.
The success
of national political campaigns, irrespective of geography, is dependent on two
sets of factors; the first set is issues and solutions while the second set is
forums and cascades. Likewise, the success of business communication, irrespective
of the firm, would also depend on issues and solutions on one hand and forums
and cascades on the other. Unlike social forums, corporate issues, solutions, forums
and cascades are more structured and continuous which has its own advantages
and disadvantages. That said, it is somewhat strange that while millions of a
nation could be swayed by national leaders to vote one way or the other, the
few participants of a business forum tend to be diffident to efforts by
managers and leaders to align and achieve. Clearly what works for social
campaigns does not appear to work in terms of business campaigns. That is
essentially because societies are willing to listen and follow certain themes
of development while organizations tend to continuously second-guess leadership and managerial themes.
Forums and
cascades
The
importance of forums and cascades is evidenced by the successes of political
parties which have a strong hierarchy of organizational units and committed
cadres. Here lies the important difference between how electoral processes are
organized for political organizations and how leadership processes are
organized for business units. The former, the savvy political organization, has
committed leadership at the top and committed cadre base at the bottom, both
thematically aligned, and in respect of some parties very well indoctrinated
too. These two layers form a tight cone with a circle of connected cadres at
the bottom and a leadership polestar at the apex, encapsulating an undecided
population in cascading layers of thematic discourse, from the top as well as
the bottom. The more diametrically larger the base of the thematic cone, the
stronger is the grip on the voters. The top-down and bottom-up cascade make for
perfect discourse. Whenever cadres lose their thematic fervor, the electoral
cone becomes wobbly.
Business
organizations over time have begun to eschew the classical pyramid structure
and have started adopting more square-like,
or even multi-cornered, structures, which is quite different from evolution of
political organizations from triangular structures to seamless, circle within
circle, conical structures. Organizational design must be reassessed if
thematic alignment is desired as an overriding goal. The loss in communication
in totally top-down communication of business organizations is not well
understood. A few all-hands auditorium meetings by themselves cannot address
the challenge. Grassroots cadre indoctrination is vital. Japanese organizations
accomplish this by putting their youngest employees through comprehensive
company study programs and on the job training assignments, regardless of their
individual functional specializations. As a result, what emerges is neither a
functional personality nor an individual personality but an enterprise
personality. When cadre becomes hand in hand seamlessly, the cone of alignment
and achievement gets built up.
Points of
view, logics of view
The other
important difference between political organizations and business organizations
is that in the former the leaders are elected while in the latter the leaders
are selected. In the former, leaders have little opportunity to collaborate
directly with the stakeholders once the
election process is over while in the latter leaders have the opportunity of
direct interface with the stakeholders at all times. Business organizations
thus provide a unique opportunity for discourse and debate all times.
Organizations have the choice of accepting this intrinsic feature and
leveraging it to unleash creative energy or fight shy of widespread discourse
and debate in them. Though the benefits are recognized by them, organizations
fumble at enabling discourse and debate, and eventually try to sidestep the
whole process by reducing the process to directed meetings rather than
freewheeling debates.
Organizations
need to be empowering to enable individual points of view while individuals
need to be responsible to support viewpoints with logics of view. Discourses
and debates become unproductive when they are characterized by discreet silence
or indiscrete rancor. Individuals who believe that silence is better to reflect
their compliance would do well to remember that as team members they are
morally and professionally contracted to give their best to their organizations,
expression of their constructive thoughts is integral to the best. Individuals
who tend to be rancorous to draw attention to themselves would do well to
remember that as team members they are
morally and professionally contracted to be constructive and disciplined in
their interactions. The point to note is that as long as individual viewpoints
are supported by logic of views, other team members would be compelled to
listen and respond.
Expressive
listening
The hallmark
of meaningful communication and collaboration lies in positive expression and
positive listening of individual, mutual and collective viewpoints. Viewpoints
need to be expressed for any discourse or debate and teamwork to be effective;
the power of expression is proportional to the logic, coherence, cogency and
equanimity of expression. Even the most critical thoughts can be positively
expressed when expression is characterized by theses components. Positive
expression is an intelligent and intellectual balance between spontaneity
(which gives authenticity) and preparation (which removes negativity). The
brain and mind must be developed to capture thoughts, internally articulate and
validate and then only express. The skillful speaker has not only a spring full
of thoughts but also the agility of mind to process them. Interestingly, the
ability to powerfully and positively express comes from an ability to listen
with sensitivity and responsiveness. Powerful political leaders such as Nehru,
Gandhi, Obama, NTR and Modi have been orators who made listeners respond but
also have been responsive to listeners through a balance of spontaneity and
preparation.
Business
leaders and managers must view communication as less of a task and more of an
experience. Active listening happens not merely through ears but through eyes
as well; whether it is a bilateral communication or multilateral communication.
Active listening, as opposed to passive listening, requires that the listeners
go beyond the words and look for the broader and deeper meanings of the communication;
they must also see the meanings through observation of body language. The
processing capability of the mind and brain mentioned above is essential for
active listening. Active listeners tend to be effective speakers. Expressive
listening, therefore, requires that both the speakers and listeners perform the
other corresponding task simultaneously. Speakers need to be aware of the body
language of the listeners to take listening cues while listeners need to
process the communication and express their responses to themselves first
internally. Expressive listening is a skill that comes not only with experience
of participating in interactions but also with the understanding that
expression and listening are two essential wheels of the cycle of
communication.
Ambient
meetings
Ambience marks
all overwhelming experiences; from massive political road shows to selective
business conferences; political orators (for example, Nehru) are effective and
so are business orators (for example, Steve Jobs) As important as oration is ambience. Successful
political road shows have a rustic and earthy, open sky and sea of humanity
ambience. NT Rama Rao (NTR), the legendary actor turned political leader and
the founder of Telugu Desam party took mass contact to new levels through his
chariot of awakening (Chaitanya Ratham). Steve Jobs took product launch events
to ethereal trajectories through a powerful combination of technological works
and theatrical oratory. It is important for speakers and listeners to give due
attention to meeting formats, realizing that it is entirely in them to make business
meetings interactive and informative.
There could
be several themes for ambience; leader-led or listener-led, technology-led or
human-led, concept-led or data-led, power point-led or persona-led, and so on. Business
organizations have thus several formats to leverage for effective communication
and collaboration. This contrasts with the rather singular option of mass
contact that political organizations have. Successful political organizations
succeed against the odds mainly through ambient meetings. It is important that
business organizations approach meetings as more than simple task movers. The
range of additional impact could be from meeting of minds to moving experiences;
the former promotes collaborative harmony while the latter ensures
transformative development, of both individuals and organizations. It may sound
challenging but there is no other winning formula than a combination of
structured spontaneity and prepared oratory to make meetings a compellingly
immersive experience.
Posted by Dr
CB Rao on May 25, 2014
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