Why Politics is Bad for Business

While divulging on number of operational aspects, particularly associated with team building and methods of efficient handling of delivery, I started observing the impact of politics with in small to medium size companies.

I was lucky enough to be able to study the impact at two very different companies and each having nearly the same size, but different business focus.

The following observations were made:

• Management tends to support, promote more manageable personnel than the better skilled resources
• More manageable are also pleasant with the management, easy going with the team and demonstrate excellent tolerance, apart from being good at what they do
• The more skilled are the ones who are really skilled at what they do, but lack in general a certain type of tolerance, will insist on particular quality and the peers would see them as difficult to work with type
  
• The more manageable, they often tend to be submissive to peer pressure and do not tackle issues, preferring more 'take-cover' attitude
• Such resources are also champions in claiming credits for others work, while able to present the information in very format that the management desires, they are also masters of making 'shit look good'
  
• Management is almost always aware of such aspects, but they do not correct this
• Friction is almost always found in any work environment, a political environment however has more far reaching impacts

How is politics established

• The resources are plagued with insecurity, recognition issues and tend to form in to groups, wherever the necessary comfort is getting established.
• Different groups that formed outside the work environments or outside the purview of work groups tend to talk, often propagate negative thoughts among each other
  
• The groups tend to wage cold war among each other, thus increasing stress and disturbing work atmosphere
• All of this remains under the observation of management and very little is done to make changes, probably because of steering a hornets nest... or simply out of fear of losing good, loyal & 'manageable' resources
• Politics is further escalated when resources are being favored or singled out for elimination/humiliation
• If management fails to prevent partiality or itself is being partial, then the underlings get away with bad behavior
• Promotion of favorites based on the people pleasing skills and their ability to appease the seniors only brings forth a team of managers who tend to cover up, favor based on partiality, make false claims and exercise control to make things benefit their individual goals

Further, how does this affect the companies adversely

• Since more skilled resources are already forced to work under poor manager or lesser skilled resources, the friction is already established
• Ego, will be a factor, but the key reasons would be that the top guy, always would take credit for better performance done by the guy below, so, lacking incentives in the form of recognition, most often, the under resources do not function to their full capacity, capability
  
• Projects are often derailed because no attempt is made by skilled ones to tackle problems, while the management favored managers, based on their nature, tend to evade facing fire and are busy either framing someone or simply covering up facts
  
• I have even noticed managers making personal appeals, crying and blaming themselves for something that has gone bad, but they only do so to providing excuses for project failures.
• Had they thought of serving the company better, they would had all the chances to let go and let the better skill manage tasks, without subjecting them to a I am boss, so I am right attitude
• Insecure managers, who fear better skilled resources working under them will also focus on eliminating as a threat
  
• Whenever anything of the above sort happens, results will not be good at all, if not for complete failures

End Result

• Majority of projects will fail, company will lose out of critical growth contributing factors
• Good, skilled resources will not be getting retained, more mediocre, ready to play type will become core part of management
• If not checked, at a certain level the company will lose its core values, will be focused on sustainability and their portfolio will start iterating towards a negative shift
• Business loss beyond a certain degree could also result in total organizational failure
• Politics will drive out more people from the organization, some more angry than the others, thus an angry ex-employee episode could also play out to adverse levels

Thus, politics at any level with in a company slowly grows and becomes stronger causing drastic rift, inhibits progress and becomes a major factor that contributes to organizational failure

Composing a Proposal

Several years of looking at customer requirements and propositioning them solutions inserted in to proposal documents has made me somewhat rectilinear about the principles of commitment, business gratitude and the attitude one must have towards building proposals.

I mean, it is not enough to quote scope of work, deliverable, project plans, milestones, budget estimates and terms, conditions of executing the proposed. It should also contain the vision, approach to solutions, why the solution would be ideal and if nothing else, at least a commitment to endure the proposal through the selection stage.

A critical mishaps happens when everything is assumed to be just work and no work is fun, unless you are doing something that you cherish and can focus, irrespective of circumstances that surround you.

All I am trying to do when I am sending out a proposal is to be through, sincere, dedicated and clear as much as possible while making any commitment.

Proposals when accepted are directly converted in to contracts. What follows through the proposal is enormous amount of actual work.

Thus, I never celebrate when I get the work, I used to think I will celebrate when the work gets done, but then, no work usually gets done. It always gets extended, some projects running in to several months or years.

Wonderful people demand some of the most interesting business requirements to be fulfilled, its almost unnerving to tell them NO, because they would also pay for that.

So, where does my proposal provision the change request handling? and under what circumstances additional billing needs be invoked?

Life surrounds your work, you surround your thoughts to work and otherwise... (workaholic) so it is essential to be able to break work in to phases of releases, allowing rooms for benefit reaping on successful delivery of projects and eventually be able to celebrate.

Its been months since I have been to movies or even had a decent coffee at a cafe, with no purpose to be there, other than to relax...

I want my proposal to allow me to live my life with comfort, ensure profitability to the company, value for money to the customer and perhaps take me to heaven for the good deeds done...

Company Growth & Risks Involved (draft)

A company grows in a multi-dimensional facet. From a small company to become a larger company, the overall capacity to manage and deliver should likewise mature.

For every company, the core management or the people who make up various regions & levels of management are vital and form the strength area of the company.

The more skilled the manager, the better chances of handling complex events in any project; meaning which, if you have through skills to work with, you can mature your delivery capability for further complex projects. There by boosting the organization strength to work in-demand areas and thus survive on the basis of quality, skill & not just on quantity.

High skills fetch premium rates and more work execution happening on premium rates, further the growth.

Risks in the form of ability of the management to retain highly skilled profiles!

Retention does not happen beyond a certain level, thus churn rate, also sometimes called attrition rate has to be kept low, as low as possible. The churn rate is measured against a period and if the overall churn rate is lower in longer period of time say, 2 years instead of 1 year, the company would still sustain, maintain steady progress.

Risk in form of investment and time needed to build such skill base!

Building a team, building a highly skilled team requires both time and money. The investment should be regular, clear and binding. Another hidden risk towards building a high skilled team is in the form of projects choices made and how well coordinated the delivery is.

Risk in form of Project Choices!

A company does, for most of the time, provided it is doing well in lead generation and sales, a choice to choose the project. And more importantly a choice in solution to deliver!

Introspective: New Leadership Pitfalls and countering techniques

When a new leadership takes over the current leadership, makes progressive changes, with or without understanding the current circumstances, what was working, will continue to work, only as long as the team perspires and accepts new tactics, but in combination of older and more stable strategies of functioning.

Why will the new leadership fail?
• Lack of observation on the leadership to nurture core skills
• Lack of observation of core result producing functional aspects
• Indignation towards stable functions (if its old and everyone is doing it, then something is wrong with it, simply because everyone is following it and the contrary, if its old and working, then it should continue to work, requires key functional observation to justify stand)
• Over focus on miniscule obstacles, while ignoring the core burning & functional issues or
• In ability to address key areas and focusing on meager functional aspects that does not provide realistic benefits

Aspects that goes on to support failure:
• Top management acting, anticipating failure and having back up plans to nullify, in the event of failure. This will in turn increase the cost of implementation, increasing production loss or stressing the profit growth, generating indirect losses
• Business programs constructed to support weaker and more under developed mode of operation which lacks fundamental understanding on strategic grounds
• Promotion of blind, aggressive tactics to yield results while, slow and methodical approaches getting ignored or shelved
• Distress and division in team environment, causing divide, mistrust and imbibing favoritism of more appeasing or productive team members
• Limiting room for exploration, study of processes and definition on service grounds, focusing solely on packaged, default mode executions

Countering Measures
• Simplification standards, approaches to decrease stress, improve focus by tapping in to the core interest and expert areas team members
• Assimilating information on problem areas, identifying new opportunities and researching for better techniques, alternatives that builds team based operations, rather than segregation
• Focused, shared approach, propagated in Enterprise 2.0 strategies (shared knowledge sharing, team driven operations)
• Solutions focused on core areas of operations with pitfalls and dynamic mapping of implementation versus effectives of the implementation i.e. metrics definition

Strategy for Team Formation

If you look up the word Strategy in a place like wiki, there will be quite a few options. They include Strategic management, Marketing strategy, Technology strategy, Digital strategy, Trading strategy & Grand strategy etc...

The following is a summarization of how a strategy comes up and will impact the nature of execution in general. Formal proposals of strategies have and most often without any recognition of psychological backdrop are made and executed.

In ordinary circumstances, every individual follows a systematized approach towards achieving their daily targets, however mundane as they can get, the objective to start and finish is always laid out. Even if you insist that you are not going to leave the bed, it still is a objective.

Thus, every strategy has a objective. A target. A pathway that gives the Start to finish points, if you focus on the objective, your strategy often forms itself.
Strategy becomes more and more complex in direct proportions to the number of variables. Variables are people, circumstances, multiple, smaller objectives.

Thus, a strategy could take longer to form as several anomalies need addressing.
Some of the common practices adopted to neutralize anomalies is to do trial level smaller strategic implementations whose outcome carries only one sole purpose, further advance the main strategy.

Now, no strategy is fully fool proof, provided the counter strategy develops formative understanding of the original strategic goals and works against the objective with clear understanding of the execution.

Strategies chiefly apply at work areas, including team based operations which starts off by the building of a team, the team dynamics often determines the success of a project and hence very clear picture of roles played by each team member should be highlighted or at least that’s how I work.

This helps me form a mutually respectable scenario among the members, with each member feeling their significance and developing a passion, focus on what they need to do and when they do what they at their best, the results are obvious, success is almost always achieved.

One Punch Stop

Objectivity, determination and ambition. One punch stop is about having a clear cut ambition with defined objectives and determination to achieve what should be achieved.

Like the purpose of a weapon is to make it lethal, effective and strong enough to stop your opponent in a single blow, one punch stop aims at providing the maximized summary information on various topics at one go.