Leadership – Performance – Purposeful Organisations

Priyank an energetic, committed & competent Manager at Logan Life Sciences was

totally charged to achieve his annual target and grow faster than the market. Being

quite new in the organisation, he was motivated by his boss with high incentives,

freebies, trips and promotions for achieving high performance.

Priyank worked 12-15 hours a day pushing all limits to deliver in high pressure

situations. After being 6 months in the job, Priyank started facing very pressing

organisational issues viz. extremely tight budgets, lack of decisions on long pending

issues, bureaucratic hurdles and no role clarity. These started impacting his initial

excellent performance & elevated his stress levels. Priyank pushed himself through

these constant daily odds & kept himself extremely busy with his daily routines; yet

this did not help and he knew he was clearly headed for a downward spiral

performance. In the hope of salvaging the situation he created a false bubble of hope

& motivation for his team; but the overall morale was miserable. Priyank realised he

could no longer manage his performance & mental stress in such an environment

and decided to quit the organisation.

What were the reasons for Priyank's & his teams failure who were highly energetic,

competent and committed employees? Did they postpone dealing with the crucial

issues by just blaming their superiors, tight budgets etc.? Did they get caught up in

bureaucracy or did they just fail to have their vision on the goal? Says Bob Eceles &

Nohria – Professors at HBS “Management was, is, and always will be the same

thing : the art of getting things done.”

Sumantra Ghoshal & Heike Bruch mention in their best seller “A Bias for Action”

that "Despite knowledge & competence and resources at their disposal; instead of

putting their energy into exceptional things that create a company’s future, Managers

beyond routine day-to-day tasks simply do not grab opportunities to create

something significant. They do everything but accomplishing the mission with which

they were charged in the first place and yet; success of a Manager always depends

on meeting his goals."

It is now that they emphasise on Purposeful Action. Purposeful action is just the

opposite of impulsive behaviour. It requires discipline, it is not in the moment and

rather entails thought, planning & analysis. It is not superficial. Rather it is, where

employees are determined, they persist & relentlessly strive to achieve the purpose

of a set goal against all odds. Achilles in Greek Mythology was the hero of the Trojan

war. He was a leader known to be ferocious, arrogant and almost invincible but it

was always the strength of his vision and purposeful actions that led him to victory

through all obstacles.

“People who exhibit purposeful action posses two critical traits – Energy & Focus.”

Energy=Agility=Eagerness=Effort=Personal Involvement. This is self generated, self driven comes from deep within.

Focus= Sense of direction=Purpose=Conscious=Achieve a goal=Discipline to resist setbacks, distractions, overcome problems.

After a 10 year study of Executives at 12 companies, Sumantra Ghoshal & Heike

Bruch reached a conclusion that it was only a small fraction of Managers who could

get something done which really mattered or moved their organisation in a meaningful way. Most of the rest did not take purposeful action. So exactly what were they doing?

Reference - Adapted from the book - 'A Bias for Action' by Sumantra Ghoshal &

Heike Bruch

The research identified 4 kinds of managerial behaviour according to their energy & focus -

• 40% of Managers are high on Energy with extremely low Focus.

They are the distracted ones who juggle countless tasks daily. They appear hasty,

busy, desperate, anxious.

• 30% of Managers are low on Energy with extremely low Focus.

Since they lack both energy and focus, they are like aimless wanderers not really

knowing where to go and how. They procrastinate on organisation work and are

often insecure and fear failure.

• 20% of Managers are low on Energy with extremely high Focus.

These are totally disengaged or detached from their work. They are focussed but

lack all energy and enthusiasm. They are loners, indifferent, tense.

• 10% of Managers are high on Energy with extremely high Focus.

The least in an organisation but these are the ones that get the job done. They are

self driven, self charged & motivated, not dettered by obstacles or external

hinderances and are reflective and calm amid all crisis.

Now let us look at the “Bias for Action” quadrants in todays light.

There are hardly any organisations that look into these 4 quadrants or even assess

the Energy or Focus of their employees. So what really does happen, what do we

observe & what should be done about it?

Let us analyse as to why most organisations breed substantial number of

“Procrastinators", even though they were not wanted? So Procrastinators are

ideally present but anonymous, they seem included but indifferent and are loners.

India has emerged as the fastest growing economy in the world providing high

opportunities in the IT, Pharma, Startups and various other sectors; what with an

override of Millenials & Gen Z. When opportunities increase it is but common that

organisations recruit candidates with good academic track records, years of

experience & great referrals. This process is conducted with these set parameters in

mind and in a haste to fill vacancy gaps. The parameters that definitely get

overlooked or not considered are candidates performance agility, soft skills and a

desire to serve. In a frenzied activity of recruitment and retrenchment, HR negates

people skill, the candidates liking for the industry, interpersonal skills and ambition checks. A question to be raised is, are performance vacancies or psychological vacancies actually filled or even considered? Functional Competencies for recruitment always take the lead

thereby crowding an organisation with floating employees; who like grasshoppers

jump from one company to another seeking better salaries & positions. The

organisation gets an overload of Procrastinator employees with low energy & low

focus.

Now lets analyse the “Distracted” ones. Do organisations have distracted

employees, the ones with high energy and low focus? Does the organisation have a

culture of coaching and the competence to coach to convert every unpolished and

distracted employee into a Purposeful one? Once coached every polished employee

will get productive, performance will ascend and the organisation will become risk

free thereby not pampering only a select few performing individuals (nurturing

Hi-Pots is really different than pampering). Coaching in many organisations is

misconstrued as high task orientation. Driving tasks through continuous commands

and seeking obedience does not account for grooming employees basis their potential.

The “Disengaged” employees are neither Procrastinators nor Distracted. They are

known for their merit and also known for their “just optimal performance” to survive in

the organisation. They are undoubtedly the gold mines. Being seniors and having

lived the highs and lows of the organisation, they are aware of strategies / policies

that worked and that did not. Their experiences were not utilised as they were

victims of certain bias; be it regional, personal, gender or personality. Though

Managements got replaced, the bias perceptions continued to reign through. The

role of leadership here is to generate a fresh outlook with such employees i.e.

re-assessing more of their strengths and capabilities than judging them by stories &

perceptions. A little bit of faith, encouragement and demonstration of confidence and

delegation of responsibilities could revive their mental energy leading to physical

energy and thereby unlocking their performance potential (since they already

possessed high focus).

Let us now take a step back and gauge what did we really explain as “Critical Processes”?

A prudent recruitment and selection process, meticulous on-boarding, precise

coaching and a culture of true and transparent appreciation, devoid bias and;

positively a Leadership connect with those employees who are high potential and

can meaningfully contribute to the organisation. A purposeful leader does the right

thing at the right time which need not be a new thing, just a new trend or a popular

move to be noticed; rather that which is good for performance, people and the

organisation.

This all then narrows down to an evidence driven Business Excellence

Process; for Leaders, for employees and for critical functions to maximise

Purposeful Action with High Energy and High Focus.