India's Technological Dilemma: Impact of Management-Centric Approach on Talent Incubation #TT #003

now managing is a good word or managing is a bad word according to me managing is not such a good word if there is a process and you are following the process you don't require managers you require clerks to follow the process the history is like this that earlier businesses and industries were being run by strategies and their kins state will remain a state and employee will remain unemployed that was the given condition and everybody was okay with that but after a while people who are designated to be the next boss started feeling bad about it that these people are so qualified they are M techs and phds and I am supposed to be bossing them and I don't have any qualification so in order to make them feel better justify that why they should be the boss these courses have been started now these courses usually one day teaches nothing Beyond common sense they just throw in lot of jargon and sophistry to make it look complicated but otherwise it is all common sense nothing beyond that Common Sense stories case studies some discussions it's all I would say more of an entity then actually serious education now we have failed to create an esteem value for technology per se for doing original research academic work also esteem value is something that has to be re-inculcated or inculcated again I mean it was never there it has to be started afresh your host and I welcome you to this series technocrat talks in this series we will be dwelling on our blind spots which have Shackled our thinking and which have preconditioned our perceptions into a certain template we have been suffering because of that this we are doing through application of engineering sense and cold logic welcome to this analytical discussion if you are new to this Channel Please Subscribe please press the Bell icon to get the notifications if you like the talk please like it and share it with your friends so that we increase the community of like-minded curious minds to take the movement forward without Much Ado let us start today's talk [Music] thank you how do you think businesses and industries in India treat investment in Technologies well investment in technology when it comes to capex in particular there is every effort in all productivity Improvement drives and if you see their presentations the focus is to minimize if not eliminate capex altogether through some rag tags in-house grown Solutions so I would say that capex and investment in technology is being considered at par with mudas is the Japanese term for losses okay so it is treated as if it is one kind of a loss pulfurage of the money or a leakage of money or something that needs to be plugged people don't think of it as an investment as in strategic initiative that is going to help them transform the organization in longer run usually people corporates are actually focusing too much on short-term results and short-term benefits and the long-term focus and strategic thinking is just gone out of the window the thing is happening that most of the big corporates if you see it is nice to think that capability development should be controlled by the strategy that is first you have to decide the business strategy and in line with business strategy you do capability development and Technology acquisition and things like that on the other hand there are some organizations who do it the reverse way exactly that is they focus on building capability whatever diverse capabilities and then based on whatever capability they have acquired they decide the strategy and decide on the business in which they want to go right I mean Reliance group is a big example how they have migrated from product to product in different ranges so they acquired capability they acquired technology capability and then they learn themselves in a new business so Market leaders would rather do like that see the mediocre organizations are governed by the market forces they follow the market forces but the market leaders lead the market wherever they want to lead the market literally so the focus according to me should shift on building premium capability first and then based on that you decide what next to be done maybe you can make a good use of MBA grads to develop market for the new capability that you have acquired but it should not be the other way that MBA grad is telling you what could be your technology strategy now so that misfires and not only Industries are not ready to invest in procuring technology even if they somehow procure and it is true for government organizations as well they find it difficult to maintain because they don't have funds in Revenue expenditure to maintain it so they buy technology but they are not able to sustain it subsequently another problem is that okay the capability development is treated as another muda so capex is anmuda investment is capability development is another model while people do not Mind Investing through their nose for taking training in leadership development and change management and you know software skills for senior executives but suddenly they become very stingy when it comes to training the technology training for the working level people there they suddenly develop cold feet and they become miserly and they try to cut corners and nowadays technology training they want to do online I mean what Effectiveness online would have right they can't have Hands-On they can't see things it is just they are saying some videos on the screen and then and the faculty is only talking to the laptop screen as if he's teaching so the effectiveness does take a back seat in these kind of approaches even though they may save some traveling costs they may save some money there but then I am saying that there has to be some parity in the kind of investment organizations are ready to make for leadership development trainings often skill training similar yardstick they should apply for technology training as well in India we treat jugaad as a virtue and we've seen great stories supporting that but what do you think are the long-term consequences to this approach especially in the industrial landscape is something where somehow you make things work for you for a short term okay bypassing some of the so-called frills you cut some Corners you take some shortcuts and very cheaply you do something for a short time but that's not how things evolve like I am sure with the yoga concept you can't make a building you have to have a proper Foundation you have to have a proper plan you have to do it in rigorous way I give you another example like if you follow the proper process of painting a building like so if you follow the proper process you should scrape the previously existing paint you should have that lambi putty planing first code second quote final quote covering code and all that if you follow the complete process you are doing a diligent proper job which will last you for five years would be that you have less budget so what you do without doing anything you just apply a coat of paint on top of whatever is there okay for a short time the building may look good but believe me in three months time it will look much uglier than what it used to look before painting so you got technology is always like that because you have done insufficient homework insufficient study insufficient preparation insufficient process to make it long lasting thing that you have done so yoga will always have a limitation it is done with the limited thought process you have not considered the options you have not followed the process that has supposed to be followed for any innovation okay it is just something has occurred and that has been done just like that do you feel we lack the capacity to incubate technology talent in India and why see we want new incumbent to start delivering from day one companies don't want to invest in technology training that is problem number one problem number two is when we throw them to on the job so called on the job training and development what happens that they land up in a silo with limited Authority with limited exposure okay so they learn only whatever is there around them immediately so that is what they learn but they never get to see the full landscape of Technology of what else is available what others are doing how it can be done so systematically never inputs are given to them okay you just throw the person on machine shop or to a shop you start operating and he learns what is being done he learns their process all right but he doesn't know what were the Alternatives what were the other options what others are doing and what the Benchmark organizations are doing all that exposure is cut off to them so that's another problem there are other trainings which are conducted by some branded organizations who give you a certificate for us compliance to assertive particular standard or particular brand now those are exorbitantly costly first of all and the focus there is more on having that particular brand not so much the content which they teach okay they will teach you certain standard that okay as performance of standard you should follow this process but what were the alternative processes what are the pros and cons of various approaches that they will never cover basically in training many trainings are conducted by people who are selling things now those who are selling things have always a vested interest to do their own brand promotion to do their own promotion of their Wares so they will never objectively teach you what else is available what are the other competing Technologies okay what are the pro and con of various things now that kind of wisdom only comes if the trainer himself is from a neutral agency who has no Stakes whether you buy that technology or buy something else okay so that's another issue where the problems come okay very we have very few institutions as a matter of fact who do comprehensive technology training without any strings attached that okay you want to sell this brand or that brand this software that software okay now those things put blinkers certainly once you start having those interests then the quality of communication suffers and of course whatever even the participants know that this fellow has come to sell this thing so they will also you're going to choose to ignore things whatever is said and they will understand whatever they decide to understand we hear a lot of complaints from our peers in the industry about a lot of micromanagement taking place at various levels of an organization do we lack the culture to handle the talent per se what is seen often is you recruit a bright boy you put him under a boss who's an SD boss so he will start from day one treating this person as a fool he will always address him as if the person is a fool you will never treat him as intelligent person and there is something called as Pygmalion effect if many times day in day out you keep communicating to somebody that he is a fool believe me after a while he will start responding like a fool and in longer term he will become a fool Converse can also happen if you have an average guy but you treat him as super intelligent guy while dealing with him after a while he will start responding intelligently and he may even surely become intelligent also it all depends on how the immediate managers treat the new Japanese and that's the problem of a culture other problem is many times in larger organization we have simply too many people too many levels of hierarchy and each one has to show their performance now it is said theoretically that okay you should delegate you should make your people responsible you should move on you should train your develop your succession plan but practically all these things are never done quite the opposite is done the bosses try to make it seem as if they are indispensable and one method of doing so is micromanagement you don't delegate anything you keep all the keys in your pocket and you walk around so whenever you want to threaten the organization you just walk out and everybody realizes that without this fellow we can't manage so he becomes indispensable right now this is what happens so in that interest so that they should be able to bargain a good reward a good promotion for themselves they make their subordinates to suffer they don't develop them by Design they give an impression that my subordinates are stupid yet I'm managing the show so it should give me more credits because I'm managing in spite of these people so that is the approach which they put up and this is positively harming the development and mindset of new Journeys and in Industries also in organizations usually promotions come in three ways one is called as Q system what happened in government organization that based on seniority one gets promoted that was still there was some logic and there was some fairness in that okay if you go by seniority there is some fairness written there's no subjectivity I mean okay you are in queue so when your number comes you get the thing it's very clear it's very clear to everybody the other approach is okay promotion by default access had a fight with the boss so he is not to be promoted why is going for Long live so not to be promoted the remaining Z gets promoted whether it deserves another way that's called promotion by default and third is promotion by blackmail now blackmail can be positive blackmail or negative blackmail now negative blackmail is okay you know some weakness of your bosses you keep quiet for that time don't correct them let them make mistake when the Nick time comes that time you threaten that boss so he says to bet live right so that is a negative blackmail but of course it depends on how vulnerable your bosses and whether he makes mistake or not and is he afraid of you spilling the beans the positive blackmail is you make the organization so much dependent on you including the boss that he can't imagine running the shop without you and when the neck period comes you threaten to quit you say that boss I have got such and such proposal from computer what do you say should I so he will say okay let me do something for you let me think don't decide in haste and then he will do something for you that is positive blackmail okay so you have made yourself indispensable therefore organization has to take you seriously okay now all these things go on but then again between boss and subordinate if boss has to make himself indispensable he can't let someone need to be empowered otherwise subordinate one day will overthrow the boss when he will become more prominently visible in the organization so all these things go in very very tall organizations and flat organizations these problems are not so much there but then most of our organizations Larry organizations are very tall in hierarchy how can HR managers and talent developers be better equipped to deal with Technical Training and competency requirements see usually HR managers and so-called tenant Talent managers while they have lot of inputs through their training on the leadership and software skill front usually they have no exposure to technology unless they have been technocrats themselves so what I would recommend is that organizations which are dealing with technocrats and Technology should have a technocrat HR who understands technology and the difficulty level of things and basically HR should be should not be judging Everybody by same yardstick of some number of achievement Etc there's always a difficulty level in all the targets how does one assess the difficulty level for example unless the fellow knows how difficult the job is say suppose you have to maintain a very big very complicated press new technology press what is the difficulty level versus if you have to just make a some Delta increase in the market in certain District okay now if you have to compare two individuals one from there one from here the one from management background will have a better position because HR and the people who are rating will understand that achievement better than the technocrats technocrat and designer how was the difficulty in designing certain things somebody who's not a designer he will never understand and because he will never understand he will never be able to assess it properly so that goes and why I always say that technocrats job is grossly underrated in Industry while managerial job is grossly overrated because the rating has been is being done by manager themselves so they are rating themselves so they always tend to rate it high there is another syndrome in Industry that whatever is the domain of Boss suppose bosses from marketing he thinks that everybody should do marketing just like when your PM was a farmer he said everybody should do farming okay so people think the bosses think Super bosses that whatever was their domain expertise everybody should be doing that if the guy from Finance he thinks everybody should do Finance everybody should know Finance so likewise yes if you have a technocrat boss probably there would be drive for technology but that is usually not happening in India the buses are more from either HR or Finance or marketing or some other corporate function and they are really equipped to assess the technology even forget dealing with it so this handicaps are there do you believe that companies in India are generally more focused on managing perception than actual performance now I am always saying that we are excessively managing in India now managing is a good word or managing is a bad word now according to me managing is not such a good word I give you an example suppose your father gives you a pocket money of let us say 500 rupees per week some particular week he says manage in this that is what manage means right means something is not what it should be something is deficient therefore you are required to manage now if you follow the process you don't have to manage if there is a process and you are following the process you don't require managers you require clerks to follow the process so why do we require so many managers now in India it is the other way because we have so many management grids therefore we require so many managers to give them a job that's a lopsided approach why we should require so many managers things should work as per system first of all when there is no system we say there is no system when we put system people don't want to follow system they try to bypass system they try to criticize system okay they try to jump the queue and get things out of turn by passing the process so there is every tendency to bypass the process and then we say that no the process doesn't work we must manage and manage what sometimes we manage performance sometimes you manage perception sometimes we manage perception of performance sometimes performance of perception everything but manage is manage the real thing is to have the process follow the process that's what Germans do you do not require so many managers there why should you require so many managers here has anybody done benchmarking High time that we do benchmarking with technology leaders how much of what is required not just because we have so many institutes so many passouts are there so they have to be given a job so we have so many you know managers so many Finance people so many HR people it's not like that right empirically you have to decide on your proportion somewhere so managing according to me is not a good thing managing has to be done for a short time only to deal with the crisis unforeseen crisis that too so in the normal course why we should be managing how can organizations ensure that they provide adequate training job profiles and motivation to retain and grow technology Talent that will is lacking in the organizations otherwise yes they can do many things suppose they decide to do all the premium Technologies in-house they train the people they buy the equipment premium equipment top of the line and they start with doing things by themselves right instead of just importing something and start selling something and then indigenize something in bits and pieces just for the namesake that it is made in India see foreign achievement and then it is long lasting and then it changes it changes the culture otherwise it is a shortcut it is a management otherwise then okay you just managed to put your flag on somebody's flag master and get the Laurels that yes I have done it so we should not be looking for such short term short-sighted achievements should be a long-term thing better be a long-term thing why do organizations that thrive on technological expertise end up hiring so many management professionals even if you hire a technical professional we see them on a trajectory of being a manager too soon why in this country do we all aspire to be managers that is the mindset now if you investigate the history of wire management education started in the first place the history is like this that earlier businesses and industries were being run by strategies and their kins whether they were educated or otherwise they were running the show and they were running fairly okay I would say man they are not doing badly anyway and it was a foregone case that ok the said sun will become the next boss so however professional somebody maybe who is an employee he will never aspire to touch that level state will remain a Satan employee will remain an employee that was the given condition and everybody was okay with that but after a while the people who are designated to be the next boss started feeling bad about it but these people also qualified they are M techs and phds and I am supposed to be bossing them and I don't have any qualification so in order to make them feel better in order to justify that why they should be the boss these courses have been started okay now these courses usually one day teaches nothing Beyond common sense they just throw in lot of jargon and sophistry to make it look complicated but otherwise it is all common sense nothing beyond that Common Sense stories case studies some discussions it's all common sense it's all I would say more of an entertainment than actually serious education Okay so that is how it how its value they give you a big stamp of some institution so you automatically get qualified to step into the capture without anybody doubting or questioning anything and one thing which these courses do definitely did do that they improve the personality profile and communication skills and of course leadership style and all those things so yes polish they definitely gave to the people and so that yes people started feeling that yes they deserve to be in that chair they themselves felt and everybody felt also so that was the mindset where these things have started now because of law of gravitation everybody is looking at the top so everybody thinks that that is the way to reach the top so with technology where do you languish you languish at some senior engineer chief designer at that level right so if you want to grow beyond that and surely everybody would aspire to grow beyond that so then one has to sometime or the other take a digression from technology and go for these kind of skill sets which give you more esteem value right now we have failed to create an esteem value for technology per se for doing original research for doing some great academic work also esteem value is something that has to be reinculcated or inculcated again I mean it was never there it has to be started afresh do you see technology incubation playing an important role in the future of the Indian industry depends on in which direction Indian industry is slated to go like if they are going to continue to do screwdriver technology and only assemble and sell things probably you don't require but yes if you do really want to do the work from Basics building blocks materials devices hmm then there is a very big demand for technocrats but it is a long process and somewhere the leadership has to give some kind of a protection because it will always be tempting to import things cheaply and not do this so that is where some policy push is required persistently for a prolonged period until this happens and we catch up at the foundation level of Technology okay but certainly like we can't be building the top floor without building the foundation now the problem is many times we just try to build the top floor and forget about rest of the building well with this we have come to the end of today's talk please take this movement forward please share it with your friends open mind is an engineer for shop and our goal is to engineer our future please press the Bell icon to get further notifications please like if you have liked the talk and please do let us have your feedback your ideas your comments your suggestions hope to see you in the next talk technocrat talks till then be happy enjoy see you next time bye [Music] thank you foreign

2023-05-03 21:33

Other news