India: The ability to make change

Synopsis: The Indian majority now calls for change. Politicians realize unrest is a potential threat. The collaborative learning that lasted civilizations should be re-discovered.


The shock waves of the Mumbai attacks ignited outrage and anger around the country. Shaking off apathy, the Indian majority calls for change.

Verdict

With over a quarter below the poverty line, only 61 percent literacy, and security non-existent for the common person, their cup of tolerance brims over.




In recent state elections, defying bribery, intimidation and violence, people turned out in greater numbers for their verdict on performance. Representatives focusing on long-term development are being returned to office.

Unrest

The socioeconomic scenario causes concern. Over 63 percent of the population is aged 15-64, and paid employment isn’t growing fast enough to meet their needs.
About half the current workforce is self-employed. Policy makers assume India’s ‘vibrant economy’ creates their productive opportunities.

But in reality, highly skilled professionals categories may have high remunerations. Self-employment otherwise is intensive labour but low productivity, with both opportunity and income being uncertain.

Politicians realize unrest, potentially, is a threat to their own survival. In a country of limited resources, the leadership’s role is to create resources.

Empower and include

Governments can’t make the nation’s progress, but they can facilitate a collective participation by innovative means - empowering people, encouraging corporate inclusive growth, etc.

For example, the micro-credit system was pioneered in Bangladesh. The most needy, especially women were enabled to start up small businesses without collateral. Rather than await doles and handouts, they look forward to self-reliance, thus contributing to progress.

The corporate industry tends to ignore critical societal issues. Their focus on profitability has widened the gap between haves and have-nots, which leads to more unrest.

Some global companies have adopted social issues of education or HIV. But in a country as large as India, every Indian institution needs to buy in to social development.

Fact is the corporate is in business because of society and not in spite of it. They hold the social responsibility for its inclusion in their growth plans.

Sense of belonging

Non-governmental organizations are effective conduits to reach with economic help, education and vocational guidance to the grassroots. They initiate the informal movement that diffuses change into the social fabric.

The older age groups can be proactive in people development. For instance, retirees are storehouses of knowledge and experience, but retirement is considered a dead end in India. Mentorship brings them a new lease of life, their inputs being invaluable to growing youth in search of perspective and purpose.

The collaborative learning of ancient times has lasted civilizations in India. People need to re-discover their strong cultural roots in collectivism, cooperation, creativity, and non-violence. The sense of belonging thus nurtured has preserved national integrity against destabilizing influences.

Terrorist front organizations capitalize on unrest to lure people to pathways of hate. A people united by self-belief, and realizing their ability to make change by democratic means, can raise up to defeat the sinister designs of terrorism.

Comments/opinions, anyone??

India: Raising tactical levels

Synopsis: Forces trained for conventional warfare don’t expect war zones in metropolitan cities. Terror groups have changed the nature of combat today.


Indian armed forces protect the country from external aggression.

Community services

Trained for conventional warfare, they know the rules of engagement, and expect to fight accordingly.

Within the country, they provide community services like relief and rescue operations during natural calamities, earthquakes, floods and so on.

In a stable democracy, war zones in the heart of metropolitan cities aren’t imagined, so public security is left to the police.

Guerrilla tactics

But in Mumbai, the enemy playing outside rules, struck with audacity and strategic sophistication almost unbelievable. In small teams carrying small arms, the fidayeen fanned into landmark locations of the urban city.

The guerrilla tactics enabled just ten young fanatics to wreck havoc over three days - killing, wounding, and destroying.

Combat units

Terror groups have raised their tactical levels from suicide bombings. The more dangerous objective of each small team dispersed amongst populations is to heap the body count before ammunition, or their life, runs out.

It’s changed the nature of combat today. Experts say that to counter urban terrorism, the ideal close combat unit is the swift and agile 4-men fire team, highly skilled in fighting dispersed mini-battles.

These security units are networked, mutually supporting and semi-autonomous. Their weapons and tactical expertise enable them to operate individually to secure endangered streets, courtyards and houses.

Canes in crisis

The first responders in Mumbai, the police, were ill equipped to contain war crisis. They were in the fray with bamboo canes, and service revolvers against AK-47s and grenades.

State and central ministers too, were clueless about assessing the danger or coping with it. Slow responses raised the toll.

Interventions by elite commandos and army contingents finally halted the mayhem.

Inadequate

Public security and crisis management networks in India thus proved abysmal in quantity and quality. A few measures are planned like an NSG plane and 500 more commandos.

These aren’t nearly enough. A widespread national security network should link all security personnel, including policemen now lowest on the rung.

The first responders need experience with modern equipment and regular training in close fighting strategies to be effective against the unexpected - or even to recognize it.

Most importantly, security personnel duty bound to constantly lay their lives on the line to protect others, should receive far better salaries, benefits and insurance than that available to them at present.

Grassroots support

Terrorism’s success is in their front organizations focusing on connecting with people at the grassroots.

In poverty stricken areas, they build schools, hospitals, and so on. Their humane face wins the minds and hearts of people forgotten by their governments.

This creates for them a strong social support base. It also allows the training camps to flourish, ensuring the flow of fanatical fervour.

For example, the Taliban is quietly growing influence in Afghanistan. Now reportedly, it has a presence in 72 percent of the country...surely a lesson lies therein.

Cont’d 4…ability to make change

India: Focus of the hotbed

Synopsis: The Asian subcontinent is the ‘troubled corner’ of the world. Young men in Pakistan sign up to export terrorism so their untimely deaths help their families survive.


In the independence movement, generations sacrificed their present for a future free from oppression.

Democracy

Post-partition, democracy became the way forward for India and Pakistan.

The aim was majority rule, whereby the people hold power under a free electoral system. Votes decide which party earns the mandate to form government.

It often leads to groupism. The party hierarchy holds actual power. Individuals or small groups at the pyramidal apex call the shots.

This leadership may override judgement calls of even the government in office. Loyalty demands following party diktats unquestioningly, or else!

Sibling rivalry

Groupism is far more complicated and uncompromising in Pakistan, where several parallel powers enter the equation - the military, the intelligence agencies, and the clergy.

India-Pakistan ties remain emotionally charged with sibling rivalry. Wounds of the partition affected six decades ago, still bleed negativity for many. It’s made the region the ‘troubled corner’ of the world.

Communal prejudices passed on to future generations, thus carry forward, as on the Kashmir dispute. Political posturing, and vested interests in the global arena, ensure the mutual tension and distrust are alive, even virulent.

New ideology

Depleted resources inherited post-independence stretched thin with increasing populations in both nations. The plight of the general public already traumatized by the losses of family members and family fortunes in the partition, worsened.

Pakistan suffered further setback with the breakaway of the eastern province (now Bangladesh). The resulting socioeconomic problems wouldn’t resolve by magic, so those in power sought to hide their own incompetence by inflaming the already seething passions.

It’s led eventually to the new ideology of death. Pakistan’s generally named the hotbed of terror training, where young men sign up at suicide squad camps focused on exporting terrorism, hoping their untimely deaths will help their families survive.



Dying in vain

But the impressionable youth die in vain, committing themselves to visions of an impossible future. They’re sent on one-way ‘missions’ to accomplish objectives that relate little with them personally.

No leader of the terrorist movement ever leads from the front. They remain unidentifiable shadows, profiting most from thus wiping out generations of youth.

The urgent need

The question is how terrorism may be combated:

• Should India cut relationships with Pakistan until the most wanted terror mongers are extradited?


• Should Indian strike forces decimate training camps in Pakistan?

Truth is the Pakistani public is held hostage in its own home. The civilian government can’t deliver on promises – the alternate power centres ensure that it isn’t really in charge.

Besides terrorism is self-regenerating, like the mythological poison snakes on Medusa’s head. From each camp or organization shut down, others arise, morphing identity.

For India, the urgent need is to first address weaknesses exposed within the nation. It makes more sense to develop internal security, than to use up resources chasing shadows outside.

Cont’d 3…raising tactical levels

India: The drag of apathy

Synopsis: India, aspiring Asian ‘superpower’ and soft target for terror strikes, is too tolerant of incompetence.


India, the aspiring Asian ‘superpower’, repeatedly suffers acts of terrorism. The half dozen incidents this year were topped by the horrific Mumbai attacks.

This too can become habit.

Soft target

Indians are proud to belong to the largest democracy. But in the eyes of the global community, India is soft target.

The devastation confirms the vulnerability of a country with millions below the poverty line. It exposes the nation’s doddering infrastructure and inept governance.

Surviving

Through five thousand years of her civilization, India’s nationhood has survived oppression, including invasions, conquests, colonizations and partitions.

Consequently, Indians developed resilience, the ability to cope with new realities. Perhaps history inspires their raising to new levels their cultural strengths of adaptability - and tolerance.

History repeats

History continues to repeat, because security consciousness for the majority isn’t a lesson learned from the past. Conditioned to oppression, the people may accept it as their way of life today.

Gun-toting bodyguards surround celebrities and politicians, while the average taxpayer and the poor fend for themselves against natural and man-made calamities, still.

Their experiences strengthen faith in the Almighty, because when God preserves, who on earth can destroy?

Internalizing

Preoccupied with just surviving even in a democracy, they don’t confront those meant to protect them leaving them defenceless. They take it all in as karma, internalizing the oppression.

Fact is repeated trauma encourages apathy, especially in the mind. People tend to lose initiative, to passively await change if and when, like the seasons, it should come.

Apathy

If political apathy is the main reason for the repeated terror strikes, it’s the public apathy that as repeatedly, puts incompetence into positions of leadership, and thereby letting oppression through.

People may vote it in unthinkingly, or with no vote, cause its default selection. The generalized apathy allows the world’s largest democracy being perceived easy prey.

Superpower?

To achieve 'superpower' status, the inertia to excellence in every field needs to be overcome. The billion head count needs to surge forward in synch.

Burdened by burgeoning population and entrenched corruption, India advances one step and slides back two. The present rate of progress hardly gets past the ‘third world’ label.

Despite the Indian presence in the exclusive space club, the drag of apathy may ensure that the superpower aspiration won’t realize – unless oppression is halted.

Citizen roles

Betterment of India is a collective responsibility. But ordinary people haven’t learned to question being forced to make do with almost nothing, while many of their representatives, forgetting role commitments, live the high life.

The silent multitudes have got used to being mutely tolerant. They scarcely remember their constitutional shareholder role, and the power to break the dysfunctional loop of oppression.

In the democratic setup, their task is to elect representatives most competent to rule, concomitantly dismissing the oppression of greed and self-aggrandizement. It’s time for the citizen majority to demand value for vote in astute governance.

Cont’d 2…focus of the hotbed

Words: The bridge of meaning

Summary: [You might view the earlier post “Language – the social tool” before this.] We interpret the data we receive from others during interactions and convert them into information that makes sense to us. It’s not the words that matter, it’s the meanings they carry that induce us to think and act as we do.


Often, we learn not to like differences, to reject thinking in ‘foreign’ ways if they act against the view of the world that our early socializations have given to us.

Stereotypes

Thus, stereotypes are, so to speak, injected into our psyches and triggered unconsciously to influence our thinking and our actions.

We interpret the data we receive from others during interactions and convert them into information that makes sense to us. The (emotional) meanings that are attached to the words - beyond what they denote - carry additional pointers.

We file them away in mind as schemas. They are then used unquestioningly to guide our activities, and provide reasons for our behaviour.

Preconceived notions

We might think that life in the business organization is a matter of critical thinking. However, all too often it relies on pre-conceived notions – of what is seen as ‘best practice’, what other people have done before, and most importantly what form of language and presentation company culture accepts.

It’s not the words that matter, it’s the meanings they carry that induce us to think and act as we do. What this means is that managers need to encourage communication – and indeed conversation - to help people monitor talk and prevent the unconscious practice of infusing life into stereotypes.

Function of education

The function of education is partly to counter-balance conditioned patterns of thought – to subject connotations, schemas and stereotypes to the hard light of analysis and evidence.

We can learn to refuse the promptings of our unconscious schema, and the stereotypes that our memories push before us. But it is not easy – and when we are tired, poorly educated or otherwise less in control, the stereotypes and connotations can retake command.

Conversations – getting used to others

We need to realize that effective communication is not limited to or controlled by either ‘stock of words’ or grammar rules. With language we connect, and it’s by no means a simple tool.

We need to recognize the power of its connotative side that can more easily break than make the global associations we strive for. We need to recognize the need for constant vigilance. Conversations help; they enable us most to get used to others.

And, what we get used to helps us to change, gradually, what we might have brought to our adult lives unquestioningly - the mind-set, and thus, the ‘sense’ we draw from words.

Perhaps this is what language in diversity really stands for – for each of us, a bridge of meaning from past to future.

Comments/opinions, anyone??

Words: The social tool

Summary: Words ‘live’ in conversations – in denotations and connotations. Meanings we hold in mind are already generalized, referring not to one but to a class or group of objects.

“When I use a word,” Humpty Dumpty said, in a rather scornful tone, “it means just what I choose it to mean, neither more nor less.”

“The question is,” said Alice, “whether you can make words mean so many different things.”

“The question is,” said Humpty Dumpty, “which is to be master – that is all.”

Lewis Carroll Through the Looking Glass.

Words mean different things to different people. Language then, is a complicated business, although we might think of it as a simple social tool.

Denote and connote

A large enough stock of words, we feel, should make our talking to others internationally easy. However, how people in different countries learn to speak, understand, or even think a language is far more complex than grammar or ‘dictionary meanings’.

Words ‘live’ in conversations. A word may have a denotation - standing for a person, a place, a thing or an idea. Most words also have connotations - associations, implications and insinuations, associating them with emotions, and feelings that may be judgemental.

For example, the noun ‘pig’ denotes an animal species. But its loaded meanings include dirty, smelly, inquisitive, grossly unpleasant, chauvinism - and cops.

Semantics

Organizational fears are that hints of sexism or discrimination could upset team relations, and productivity. Employers hope to install equality with politically correct language, erasing negative or derogatory words from usage.

But does this correct the mindset? As it happens, meanings we hold in mind are already generalized, the word referring not to one but to a class or group of objects. The mental associations are simply transferred to the replacing words like, for example, idiot-retarded-challenged-differently abled.

With the use of euphemisms, bias and prejudice are no longer visible. But their hold on semantics remains and extends with the (connotative) ‘sense’ moving – from old word to new word.

For diverse workgroups, just keeping up with euphemisms could sometimes make more confusion than sense.

Upbringing

Childhood conversations - Jean Piaget’s “socialized speech” - begin the process of taking in culture. As children grow, they model themselves on parents, teachers and friends - first understanding and then speaking, thinking and acting, just as the others around are seen to do.

People become tied to their background and live life according to the customs, norms, and habits of thought they experience in their upbringing. It makes their world organized. It stabilizes daily life by telling them exactly how to identify things and act on them.

Connotations play a large part in stereotypes - hackneyed conceptions, with perhaps an element of truth and a large dollop of fancy. A stereotype becomes a standard received idea, preserved in our minds.

Cont’d 2…The bridge of meaning

Body language: Twist of the thinking brain

Summary: [You might view the earlier post “Body language: Motivating signals” before this.] Emotional arousal can be motivational. But people can also stop and reason critically before they act.


Our visual impressions register at two levels. When we read the body language in intense situations, our initial reaction is to immediately follow suit.

The context

Understanding the context of the situation is a more deliberate process that comes later, as we explore the image consciously.

We then recognize and elaborate on the body language. Finally we might even reverse our initial reaction and stay put instead.

Through both routes, states of emotional arousal develop. These pump up the energy appropriate for action, be it reflexively, or as the result of conscious thought.

Two circuits

The emotional brain monitors whole body actions. Its hub is called the amygdala. Two neural circuits pass through it.

The first, the subcortical circuit operates in much the same way in all higher order animal species. This is the basis of automatic reflex-like emotional behaviour.

The second, the cortical circuit, includes cognitive centres for thinking and reasoning, and is much more efficient in humans. This sustains recognition of emotional body language, and is more adept at causal assessments.



Critical reasoning

Hence people can rush into action simply because others are doing so. But they can, on the other hand, also stop and reason critically about what they should do:

They say, “Why should I run? Let me look first if there is a reason to run."

So they may also run towards the ‘danger’ than away from it - like reporters do to get scoop news.

As long as the cortical circuitry in the brain remains active, people think for themselves as and when they act, even in an emotionally charged crowd.

Issues of motivation

Group activity may be stimulated in more ways than one. The ‘reasoning’ of emotional body language may at times have more success than words in motivating behaviour.

For example, management planning may send directives for one type of group activity. Yet emotional arousal in cohesive work groups may become high enough to override the formal lines of command and control.

Human motivation is complex. Organizations need to be aware that heterogeneous groups used to different cultures and ways of doing can easily upset expectations of uniform, logical individual and group actions within any system.

Comments/opinions, anyone??

Body language: Motivating signals

Summary: There’s little or no control over the involuntary signals conveyed by our body language. Human and other primates use gestural signals as guides for their own behaviour. The emotional contents are contagious.


Our behaviour, we realize, can telegraph our thoughts.

So we put a good deal of effort into being ‘correct’ at work or in social gatherings. ‘Rules’, social or cultural, are imposed to control voluntary movements in interpersonal relationships.

Tuned to visuals

Despite these safeguards however, there’s little or no control over the involuntary signals (of emotional messages), conveyed by body language – posture, expressions, tone of voice, etc.

Unbeknownst to us, our bodies are tuning through visual, non-verbal cues into ‘understanding’, ‘resonating’, and ‘responding’, all at the same time.

At unconscious levels, we’re emotionally involved with the environment and others we see around us.

The body language

Non-verbal communication isn’t an alternative to speech, but an integral part of language clearly providing clues to sense making.

Researchers at the University of Tilburg, Netherlands explain that we’re actually so sensitive to living and non-living environments that imagery can bring on strong emotional reactions.

So we’re moved to laughter or tears watching a movie or seeing a painting, a sculpture, or just pictures – each image we perceive is worth a thousand words to us.

Human and other primates are especially sensitive to gestural signals. They use them as guides for their own behaviour.

Precise information

Thus, body language is still a very potent motivator of group action. It sends out information that is more precise than speech. The emotional contents are contagious, touching group members, inducing activity.

Even the casual observer can understand the message, and quite unconsciously, experience fellow feelings. All of us carry this strong tendency just as most animals, to do as others do to ‘survive’ as a group.

Emotional arousal

Response depends on the degree of emotional arousal. For example, when a little afraid, a person may show it fleetingly in eyes or face. This means low arousal, and its significance is lost unless others around catch the look and interpret it correctly.

But when the degree of arousal shoots up and the person is terror-stricken, he/she also runs for cover. Distress, clearly enacted, finds ‘like-mindedness’ forthwith.

Onlookers become attentive instantly, their own emotional states rising in response to the cues they are receiving. The collective intent resonates and surges. Everybody runs for cover – without a word being spoken!

Cont’d 2…Twist of the thinking brain

Goals: transcending limits

Synopsis: [You might view the earlier post “Goals: the involvement with outcomes ” before this.] Choice depends on personal beliefs and not the status quo. ‘Social influence’ today, may be sourced from anywhere in the world.


The choices we make aren’t from a singular reference point, but develop from several that may even be mutually unrelated.

Homogeneity wiping out

Utilities that individuals or groups contemplate depends on their personal beliefs and not really on the status quo of the organization.

Globalization facilitates this drastic motivational change. Social homogeneity is wiping out everywhere, and so is predictability of behaviours.

Linked through technology

The outcomes anticipated make sense only to the actors. Today, social influence may be sourced from anywhere in the world. Organizations may have no idea what these might be!

Technology ushers in the age of information. Social influence is characteristic of this Internet-supported reality. No longer constrained by, or restricted to political borders or geographical boundaries, it now simply spans the globe.

Influence transformed

Hence cultural and technological change has forced into organizations and societies.

Common assumptions have been that ‘the input’ into any transaction, relationship or system is roughly equal to ‘the output’ in dimension and intensity.

But the reality today is something else. The ‘info link’ in social networking is ever increasing, ever varied. For example, developing social trends don’t change their proportions arithmetically; they expand in geometric progressions.

Consider this -

Q: If we have a series of numbers in the order 2, 4, 8, and so on, what will be the 10th term?
A: Not double digits, but in four figures – 1024.

Similarly, the nature and power of social influence too has transformed.

Global reference

The latest of generations to join the organizational workforce, the Millennials, appear to have a profound affinity for the Internet and for diversity.

They tend to think as global citizens, beyond limits of country, race or culture. Hence they are most responsive to rapid change. They carry forward the global reference.

For instance, they don’t seem to follow trends. They create them instead, finding obscure content on the ‘Net and popularizing them. Nodal interlinks over the network keeps the process churning worldwide.

Transcending

Perhaps ‘generation next’ are evolving a new need – the need to transcend the limits of homogeneity. They thrive on change, and architects it, in fact, enhancing roles within and outside the system.

Organizationally, it may be better to follow new generational leads and open our minds to global citizenship. Both employers and employees need greater flexibility of thought to accommodate multiple reference points.

Motivate involvement

Organizational members need to accept increasing diversity in their midst without prejudice. They also need to realize that rising attrition clearly indicates the lack of employee involvement with organizational decisions.

In the global workplace, the use of phrases like ‘your cultures’ or ‘your countries’ now appears limiting and archaic. It constrains generating collective involvements in new environments.

Unless the workforce motivations are carefully understood and addressed, productivity remains the unresolved concern.

Comments/opinions anyone??

Goals: the involvement with outcomes

Synopsis: Money isn’t the only motivator. Our involvement with several outcomes ultimately affects what we do. Much of the dilemma we go through relates to our personal desires vis-à-vis our social expectations.

Organizations around the world have traditionally used money incentives to motivate performance. But now, despite the tried and tested lure, they experience increasing attrition rates.

Not the only motivator

Employers are left wondering how exactly productivity can be encouraged, since the shelf life of money incentives appears short.

Besides, with social and organizational diversity increasing, behavioural motivations of different constituent groups seem complex, difficult to predict.

Over four decades ago, theorist Victor Vroom hypothesized the expectancy theory - that a worker tends to choose high productivity if they see it as the means of achieving one or more personal goals.

That means money isn’t the only motivator. Our degree of involvement with perceived outcomes ultimately determines what we do.

Fat or lean?

This works in every area of life, even in discriminating between package labels.

In a study, researchers asked target groups to decide between two packages of ground beef – one labelled “80 percent lean”, the other “20 percent fat”.

They found that although both essentially meant the same thing, most people predictably preferred the lean. Why is because ‘fat’ is connotative, often viewed as repulsive.

Although the package contents were identical, their labels still subtly biased thinking and motivated choice in the target groups - sometimes wishfully!

Personal and social

Advertising language thus attempts to influence consumer choices causing unconscious emotional reactions. Our motivations are linked to our social and cultural origins, and the orientations that we thereby learn or adopt.

Before acting on the environment people tend to think over four types of consequences:

• Self approval or disapproval
• Social approval or disapproval
• Gains or losses for self
• Gains or losses for significant others.
  

Fact is we’re an intensely social species. Much of the dilemma we go through relates to our personal desires vis-à-vis our social expectations.

Integrated response

Norms, beliefs and customs we carry in memory associate with our subjectivity, and sense of self. They contribute to our reasoning.

These considerations influence our life decisions. Consciously or unconsciously, we may be influenced by their dictates. In our action responses we integrate our behaviours with the goals we intend to achieve.

Know the context

In any department, or workgroup in the organization then, motivating factors relating to individual wants may differ from group preferences. Choices as a member of a social (or cultural) group may also be quite different to those in personal capacity.

Earlier the ‘personal’ and ‘social’ referents were a little more predictable because people came from similar backgrounds. Now in the global context, family, community, neighbourhood, etc., could mean different things to different people.

If productivity is to be encouraged, it becomes important to know about these differences of personal and social contexts that serve to motivate the behaviours of organizational members.

Cont’d 2…transcending limits

Behaviour: acting for the future

Synopsis: [You might view the earlier post “Behaviour: the power of the hunch” before this.] Emotions make thinking more intelligent. Our ability to intuit then depends on the unique mental wiring connecting our emotions and our general intelligence. Intuition makes us streetsmart savvy, thinking future.

Intuition drives the adaptability to changing environments, with immediate knowledge.

Inhibition and distress

The rationalistic mind blocks this fearing passion. But by inhibiting the emotional livewire, issues are grasped incompletely, choices biased, failures in following through or stereotypical mistakes doing so.

Incompetence with social skills raises anxiety and fear, shrinking working memory. The gut feelings in this case, simply signal organic distress when faced with the unknown!

Thinking intelligent

Our intuition combines experiential learning of the past with the present context. It also guides decisions on the ‘right’ options in problem solving, and regulates changes in behaviour.

The intuitive signals are carried by our emotions, both positive and negative. Emotions thus make thinking more intelligent.

The context

Emotions are of special value in the social context. There are five competencies that build on one another to develop social skills -

• Knowing one’s emotions
• Managing emotions
• Motivating oneself
• Recognizing emotions in others
• Handling relationships

They influence our use of language, the way we perceive others or ourselves and especially, how we confront environmental challenges and adapt to change.

Mental wiring

Utilized at a level below consciousness, intuition combines bits of learned information into new patterns - fast.

Our long evolutionary history makes intuitive thinking a deeply buried power of the mind. It develops spatial associations and helps our adjusting to the environment’s unpredictable changes.

Studies have identified a direct neural link from the centre of emotions (the limbic system) to the centres of reason (the frontal regions) of the brain.

Our ability to intuit then depends on the unique mental wiring connecting our emotions and our general intelligence. It predisposes us to think and act in certain ways.

Streetsmart – thinking future

The value of decision-making lies in the flow of adaptive behaviour - from rapid reading and evaluation of possibilities, to unerring selection of response, and performance suited to situation and context.

Decisions relate to the future and we need educated guesses to make them effective. Intuition makes us streetsmart savvy. We can think according to context, utilizing divergent thinking and non-rational logic to back our hunches.

With the clear inputs of emotions, it also facilitates universal empathy, and the building of positive relationships. We are able to change ourselves and encourage others also to change with us.

Extending power

This innate potential cannot be taught. In times gone by intuitive skills were critically responsible for the physical survival of human life or species. We need to understand and accept our right brain’s astute promptings to guide us through life.

And extend the power of our minds to our psychological and creative planes, so individual and organizational actions in the new global reality are unencumbered by hesitation and doubt.

Comments/opinions anyone??

Behaviour: power of the hunch

Synopsis: We assume that people decide to act only after they have a workable theory. But the emotional livewire may initiate action far sooner.

When exactly do people decide to act? Scientists at the University of Iowa experimented with a simple card game and a polygraph, and found some fascinating results.

The scientific tests

Researchers used two groups of people - “controls” (normal people), and “patients” (people with frontal brain damage).

…the players are given four decks of cards, a loan of $2000 facsimile U.S. bills, and asked to play so that they can lose the least amount of money and win the most. Turning each card carries an immediate reward ($100 in decks A and B and $50 in decks C and D). Unpredictably, however, the turning
of some cards also carries a penalty (which is large in decks A and B and small in decks C and D)...

By the process of turning the cards over, participants can build a concept about the decks, and adjust their play concomitantly.

Understanding

Researchers identified 4 stages in the game play:

1. Pre-punishment - Before encountering losses, both groups behave the same.
2. Pre-hunch – By card 10-20, after encountering losses, stress reaction occurs in ‘controls’. This causes a change in their behaviour.
3. Hunch - By card 50, all of the “controls” express ideas about the ‘wrong’ decks, but none of the “patients” can do so.
4. Conceptual period - By card 80, seven out of ten “controls”, and three out of six “patients” correctly explain the nature of the card game.
   

The two groups clearly show differences in behaviour responses. The controls could rapidly adapt to the game, but not so the patients.

The brain tracks

We use two routes in our brain while thinking –

• The rapid track is the intuitive route. It operates quickly to identify and understand patterns in new situations, which helps us quite unconsciously, to adapt to them.
• The rational route is slow track. Although comparatively delayed it allows a conscious, critical grasp of events through deliberate analysis of the data we receive.

From the findings, we might conclude that brain damage in the patients prevented activation of their unconscious reasoning, and hence their making adjustments to the game.

Change in behaviour

In any situation, our eventual decision-making is influenced by unconscious signals from memory of reward or punishment. This encourages us to change behaviour.

The researchers found that with their losses, all the controls showed stress reactions, like sweaty palms, to the riskier decks. Even before knowing exactly why they were reacting, they began to avoid those decks.

But none of the “patients” had such reactions. Even those who finally formed a correct concept of the game could only continue with their previous behaviour patterns.

Cont’d 2…acting for the future

Intuition: learning without awareness

Synopsis: [You might view the earlier post “Intuition: comfort with ambiguity” before this.] The insight is quick, bypassing logic. The survival of the species through adversity proves its effectiveness.

Intuition allows a direct cognitive understanding and operates at many levels - physical, emotional, mental and spiritual.

Immediate knowledge

It’s a far superior source of knowing than logical reason – and far more rapid. The insight bypasses analytic logic.

Intuition is defined as:

Immediate knowledge, as in perception or consciousness, distinguished from "mediate" knowledge, as in logical reasoning.

For example, we know that black is not white, or that a square peg won’t fit a round hole. But we can’t explain how we know so we call it a hunch, a gut feeling, or even luck.

Best practice?

Following ‘best practice’ became important in organizational life to preserve continuity and sameness. But global change has turned the world into a village increasing the heterogeneity that people now have to work with.

Society and the business organization need to relate to diverse people, in constituent demographic groups and customers. Among differences of age, culture, religion, and nationality, ‘tunnel’ vision and single-file progressions appear not to work too well.

It then becomes difficult to determine whether the erstwhile best practice can be relied on in new circumstances.

Adaptive behaviour

Theorists argue that instinctual reasoning was the only available daily intelligence that helped people in ancient times deal with the unknown.

In the uncertain circumstances they lived in, responses had to be instantaneous. Too many predators were about and there was no time to ponder laboriously over logical choice. They needed to correctly interpret sounds and movements to be able to survive.

Distilled knowledge

Experiential learning made unconditioned reflexes conditioned behaviour. These behaviour patterns, free of hesitation and doubt, eventually stored in memory as adaptive instincts.

In time they distilled as our intuition. The rapid route of thinking activates stored procedural knowledge, and quite unconsciously, we’re able to perform.

Feeling for order

Intuition is the “root” of all discoveries. Many noted scientists and Nobel Prize winners acknowledge knowing the answers before, working out the problems later. Said Einstein:

There is no logical way to the discovery of elemental laws. There is only the way of intuition, which is helped by the feeling for order lying behind appearance.

Intuition has a more global role to play in social intelligence, because people are far more unpredictable than things. It’s said that it takes less intelligence to land a man on the moon than it does to resolve the conflict of a married couple!

The learning

The ability to intuit is now considered innate. It represents our learning without awareness. Centred on person or thing, the ‘picture’ is built from elements obtained from generalized explorations on a wide horizon.

This real form of knowledge is critical for effective decision-making. It works through our emotions to provide the crucial understanding. The survival of species proves its effectiveness.

Comments/opinions anyone??

Intuition: comfort with ambiguity

Synopsis: Intuitive thinking has been considered relationship-based, ‘female type’ thinking. Women may be more adept at multitasking, looking beyond the obvious and in managing a variety of situations.


With discovery of two hemispheres in the brain in the twentieth century, functional dualism was theorized along gender lines.

The dual modes

The logic mode of the left hemisphere was perceived as the rational ‘masculine’ consciousness, task-based and academically brilliant.

The insight mode of the right hemisphere was looked upon as the intuitive ‘feminine’ consciousness that is relationship-based.

Feminine competency?

Insight bases on divergent thinking and inductive logic. But whether intuition (or rationality) is intrinsic to gender is still debated.

For example, former British Prime Minister Winston Churchill was mediocre academically. Yet he possessed "a zigzag lightning of the brain" that was universally admired.

Again, Indian littérateur Rabindranath Tagore went on to be a Nobel laureate, and two sovereign countries, India and Bangladesh have adopted his compositions as their national anthems. He created a university although he himself avoided formal schooling.

The non-rational way

Intuition or instinct isn’t irrational, but rather a non-rational, holistic way of thinking that forms the big picture from only a few dots.

The involvement with home, family and social connections could make women more adept at looking beyond the obvious, multitasking and managing a variety of situations at the same time.

So they appear more comfortable with ambiguity, better at decoding emotional messages, in nonverbal sensitivity, and in communicative verbal skills.

Stress responses

Unknown variables raise new levels of incompetence in people and performance falters. The resultant stress can cause unthinking responses, like:

• Panic is thinking too little, losing touch with situation and context and operating by some remote instinct to simply survive.
• Choking is thinking too much, losing touch with instinct and becoming tentative, approaching the job like a beginner, second-guessing oneself.
  

Stress conditions generally include emotional outpourings of fear and anger. They do also lead to irrational behaviours.

Hence ‘emotions’ have become connotatively associated - although it’s more accurate to equate ‘stress’ with ‘irrational’.

Systemic discomfort

Rationalism faces uncertainty in handling unknown variables. In interpersonal issues, motivation, and teamwork conflicts arise, producing hesitation, vacillation and emotional stress. The process of adaptation requires new learning.

But stress confuses the mind and shuts off reasoning. The decisional strategies adopted are reactive and only to alleviate the systemic discomfort.

People forced to think on their feet in uncertain circumstances might gamble on certain solutions working for them. Or they may become too overwhelmed by situation and context to make informed choices. They may also avoid taking a decision altogether by procrastinating or passing the buck.

Intuition rediscovered

An effective decision then seems a lucky strike. In a world of rapid change, multitasking and social skills have become keys requisite of ability because resources, including time, are now limited.

In its quest for the competitive edge, enterprise latched onto social intelligence as key in the global interactive process. Intuition, the “feminine” side of mind, has thus been rediscovered.

Cont’d 2…learning without awareness

Rationalism: problems with change

Synopsis: [You might view the earlier post “Rationalism: the base on reason” before this.] The focus became active, even aggressive control of the environment. However, as the globalization of business transcended international boundaries, serious inadequacies of the traditional ‘masculine’ leadership began to show up.

Rationalism meant that other (disruptive) influences had to be prevented from invading logical reasoning. Behaviourally, there was resistance to change, hence the focus on active, even aggressive control.

Sharpening the mind

The cone of consciousness trained the mind to think deeply about one thing at a time, avoiding all ‘interference’ that intuition might provide. The attempt was to separate fantasy from reality.

To sharpen the mind, anything to do with ‘instinct’ was thus consciously, consistently blocked out of the thinking process.

Techno-intelligence

The index of intelligence then was based on mathematics and verbal language. This assumption still holds in academic circles it originated in.

The orderly, systematized, familiar world – as closed systems – has been instrumental in advancements of science and technology.

The use of tools, the development of language helped people to adapt to the environment and act upon it.

The idea soon became that the environment too was controllable, and subject to man’s will. The goal was set of mastering the universe for a secure, stable and predictable ambience.

One-tracked excellence

Oral and written traditions alone would allow the transfer of information. The belief became that one-tracked pursuit of excellence leads to superior intelligence and thereby superior decision-making and problem solving.

Rationality was meant to have been as effective in corporate circles as it was in the academics, and within limits of social homogeneity, it can be so for sometime.

Effects of time

However, problems arise with time.

As the globalization of business transcends international boundaries, the dependence on rationality in transnational mergers and acquisitions ends in disaster.

Time ensures that nothing ever remains the same. Every society also sees change evolving at various different levels, including education and work for women and minorities, and rising diversity in society and the workplace.

Inadequacies

Thence, against serious environmental challenges, inadequacies of the traditional ‘masculine’ leadership begin to show up.

Under the rule of rationality, social development doesn’t keep pace with the advancements of technology. Consistently logical, speech-promoted intelligence fails in diverse social interactions. In unfamiliar situation and context, one-tracked thinking, decision-making and problem solving proves ineffective.

By the turn of the millennium it became clear that rational analytical thinking moves ponderously, and arrives too late for a 24-hour global marketplace.

Comments/opinions anyone??

Rationalism: the base on reason

Synopsis: By the seventeenth century BC, the mind of man ruled over matter, which otherwise operated by emotions and instincts. Women were viewed as predisposed to this “irrational”, i.e., emotions, instincts, and fancies.


The word 'rational' has been used to describe numerous theories, especially those concerned with truth, reason and knowledge, including those religious and philosophical.

Consistent logic

Rationality refers to a particular way of thinking.

It has been defined as:

The quality of being consistent with or based on logic; the belief or principle that actions and opinions should be based on reason rather than on emotion or religion; the kind of thinking we would all want to do, if we were aware of our own best interests, in order to achieve our goals.

Dominating life

In the fifth and sixth centuries BC, Greek philosophers decided that more than the gods, the mind of man dominated life.

By the seventeenth century, the idea of dualism was adopted, where mind and body were perceived as split horizontally, separate and independent of each other.

Rationality became the key feature separating humans from animals, and the way to go to achieve life goals.

Mind, accounting for thought naturally ruled over matter, which otherwise operated by emotions and instincts.

The irrational

Anything empirically unexplainable, unverifiable, was attributed to luck or blessings of the gods. Instincts or intuition was considered irrational and concerned with mere physical survival progressively alien to man's regulated world.

Deductive reasoning through analyses of accumulated data gradually became the canon of cognitive ability – “rationalism” in the dominant image of man.

Connotations

Hence, man was said to be rational.

But women, concentrated on child-raising and family life and generally kept away from other more "cerebral" activities, were viewed as predisposed to this “irrational”, i.e., emotions, instincts, and fancies, seen as evolutionary vestiges.

The words thus imbibed connotative associations with gender.

Cont’d 2…problems with change

Effective decisions: the cutting edge

Synopsis: [You might view the earlier post “ Effective decisions: the intelligent ability” before this.] Thinking, when assisted by emotions, leads to better choosing. The intuitive mind, with its innate ‘trigger’ of emotion, makes the tough choices come right.


People tend to distrust emotions believing them to be irrational outpourings that create stress and disrupt proceedings.

Better judgement

But, being unemotional and at the other end of the continuum, is just as disruptive.

In fact, among the many crucial cross-cultural associations, mergers and acquisitions that happened over the last decade or so, at least two-thirds turned out failures.

Not because financial or logical analyses were off the mark, but as a matter of ignorance about culture and emotion. Thinking, when assisted by emotions, leads to better judgement. Passion (another word for emotion) introduces the cutting edge to cognition.



Generalizing

How do emotions really act? First, they help to identify things, generalizing understanding between different centres of the brain.

Experiments with the “split brain” (separated left and right brain hemispheres) showed that even subtle shades of emotion generated in the right hemisphere by a stimulus known only to it, can get across to help the isolated left hemisphere ‘guess’ the nature of what it could be.

Reduce overload

Researchers at the University of Waterloo explained that positive and negative emotions actually reduce the pressure of information overload in complex social situations.

Emotions signal what one really cares about. Pleasure or excitement about a particular action proves that its possible outcomes are genuinely important.

Negative emotions also help to narrow down alternatives in option selections. Action processes associated with strong negative emotional feelings will be rejected at the outset, reducing the burden of computation.

The emotional base ensures that the decisions and their goals are inherently significant.

Speed scans


Thence, in our decision-making processes, emotions slash the:

• number of alternatives evaluated
• time taken for considering each.
  

In uncertain or threatening situations in our evolutionary past, speed scans or quick environmental surveys ensured survival. Our intuitive mind carries the ability forward to the present day.

The intuitive trigger

Our intuition is thus critical to our decisions in adapting to unknown or unfamiliar situations and contexts.

The quick grasp of a problem and its implications by this rapid route of thinking helps us understand and assess issues, decide between options and then act upon the right selection.

The intuitive mind, with its innate ‘trigger’ of emotion, helps make the tough choices come right.

Comments/Opinions Anyone??

Effective decisions: the intelligent ability

Synopsis: The common assumption is that important decisions need the most rationality. But being stuck on ‘logic’ doesn’t guarantee the best choice.


Decisions, important or unimportant, are made throughout the day. The common assumption is that the more important they are, the most rationality is need.

So smart, so dumb

But ‘common assumption’ may be wrong. Psychologists noticed that an academically brilliant politician persistently made whopping errors in functional social relations.

How could somebody so smart be so dumb? Their answer – his ‘intelligence’ lacked the requisite emotional quotient for effective social interactions.

Another intelligence

In other words, being stuck on logic doesn’t guarantee the best choice. Astute decision-making must include ‘intelligence’ of another kind – emotional.

This is defined as the ability to:

• perceive, appraise and express emotions accurately
• access and generate feelings to facilitate cognitive activities
• understand emotion-relevant concepts and use emotion-relevant language
• manage one's own emotions
• manage emotions of others
  

And in the process one promotes growth, wellbeing, and functional social relations between self and others. This, the highly intelligent individual was quite unable to do, and hence his political career sank.

Findings of choice

Researchers at the University of Amsterdam went so far as to hypothesize that routine issues need conscious thought, but those that are vital don’t.

The hypothesis was confirmed in four studies, in the laboratory and also among actual shoppers, on simple and complex consumer purchase choices.

From their experimental findings, the researchers concluded that:

Simple choices…indeed produce better results after conscious thought, but choices in complex matters … should be left to unconscious thought.

Go with gut

That is, quite in reverse to common assumption, unimportant decisions (such as between different towels or different sets of oven mitts) can be thought about rationally.

But important decisions (such as between different houses or different cars) need the assistance of emotions, and inputs from the intuitive mind.

Bottom line – for effective decision-making, it’s better to tune in to gut feelings.

Cont’d 2…the cutting edge

Connecting: the emotional wellbeing

Summary: [You might review the earlier post “Connecting: the routine associations” before this.] But they are comparatively less able to transform customer relationships to investments. Multinational concerns are cashing in.


Companies providing unstinted support are most likely to impress customers positively.

Focus on rapport

In India, foreign/multinationals cash in on this customer ‘connection’ eluding the nationalized Banks.

Especially with the retiree customer groups, the focus is on rapport. Their specialist relationship managers take charge of personalized interactions.

Critical moments

Purchase decisions relate to certain moments of truth. In customer view, these are instances of swift service and satisfactory problem solutions. For example, in prompt help with credit card repayments, holds on cheques, investment and tax advices, answers on loans and so on.

Customers grow to appreciate and reward the company. These critical moments can spark over 85 percent of customers committing to assets investments or more product purchases, as research findings in retail banking have shown.

Emotional wellbeing

Priyanka, employed with a multinational concern, says:

Initially it takes time for both of us to get used to each other. And only after a while, with effective relationship building, it takes off.

Emotional wellbeing of the customer needs to be central to the service offered. Before buying further services, every customer tends to review expectations.

Encouraging customers

Feeling that their needs are being met at critical moments (and not the company or its representative’s at their expense), customers feel encouraged to relate further with the system.

Wary or skeptical customer attitudes can be changed to positive associations with brand – it just needs effort, and perseverance to expand the role.

Extended family

Priyanka, a relationship manager, explains –

Our main aim is to first deepen the routine relationships, and then to introduce them to various other products of the bank. For instance, I take care of their finances, their banking services, investment advices, and also maintain their portfolios, whatever they are.

What sort of success results? They become a part of the extended ‘family’.

Revenue contributors

Relationship managers, as the frontline people in touch with customers, are actually the main contributors who bring in the revenue for the Bank.

Priyanka says –

This is also a new concept for customers. They feel the privilege of having a dedicated Relationship Manager for all their banking needs, and respond wonderfully.

Clearly, the emotional connection is enough to transform the ‘routine’ to ‘unique’ relationships.

Guardians

Becoming guardians of customer wellbeing has paid off handsomely for the multinational concerns.

If nationalized sector members are to catch up they need to change big time their mindset on processes, and attitudes towards the regular, retiree customers.
As the research also showed, following negative experiences, up to 70 percent customers may turn away to other institutions.

Comments/opinions anyone??

Connecting: the routine associations

Summary: Nationalized Banks in India have a massive customer base. Yet relatively, their success with expanding the relationship isn’t comparable.


Nationalized Banks in India have vast networks spread throughout the country.

The network

In the metropolises they have hundreds of branches, e.g., 1016 in Delhi, 985 in Mumbai, 726 in Kolkata, and so on, besides catering to smaller cities, towns and far-flung rural areas.

Obviously, their customer complements are massive. Multinational Banks that have branches in tens at most, like say, 15 in Kolkata, and nothing in rural areas, can hardly compete with their numbers.

Mandatory association

The bulk of customers in the nationalized banking service are governmental employees/pensioners regularly receiving remittances into their accounts.

The association is mandatory ruled by legislative and bureaucratic norms.

New initiatives

Improving the quality of goods and services is generally perceived key to generating business. Many companies invest heavily in quality improvements and loyalty programmes.

But success with the new initiatives is mixed, rather than hugely successful.

The cost of retaining current customers is actually less than getting new ones.

Yet, despite their superior numbers, the success of the nationalized organizations in expanding relationships with their customers isn’t quite comparable to their multinational rivals.

Focus offline?

When the outcomes of higher sales and a healthier bottomline don’t naturally follow, perhaps the focus for generating business is offline.

Fact is, for relationships to become significant in the social context, emotional attachments are needed.

In the corporate world similarly, success (or failure) with customers depends on the nature of connections built with them.

The humdrum routine

Nationalized Banks appear to undervalue their massive base of accounts - e.g., of the retirees. So impersonal transactions can hardly do the trick for them.

Because these routine processes are basically humdrum, behaviour and attitudes of the organizational employees may, in fact, become noticeably negative towards the ageing public.

Many of those in direct contact with these regulars, thus rarely distinguish themselves in customer experience.

Diminishing the brand

Rather than nurture the interface, they appear to deliberately delay transactional processes or give customers the bureaucratic runaround should they approach with a problem or loan request.

The customers complain that the frontline people just couldn’t care less about what happens to them or to their money. Staff tend look upon the tasks they perform as unpleasant chores forced upon them or as charity to the public.

The mutual vibes of resentment have consequences – clearly diminishing brand relationships.

Investing out

Revenue opportunities for the institutions may evaporate because many in the banking industry operate by entrenched mindsets.

Customers feeling neglected or patronized, appreciate none of the service they receive. The accounts are kept open only to receive governmental remittances – that is, for the routine transactions only.

And at opportune moments, they move assets, investments and confidence votes out to other places, generally to the multinational corporations.

As a result, the nationalized industry fails to secure large investments from their own mandatory customer base.

Cont’d 2…the emotional wellbeing

Old habits die hard

Summary: Corporations in India use technology in relationship management. But the Indian customer psyche may be turned off by ‘faceless’ initiatives.


Multinational corporations in India, like Banks, are using technology in customer relationship management. It’s meant to connect with customers.

Call lists

The frontline sales staff manage these links through ’phone calls. They have access to customer databases to do so. The call lists are identical, so each pitches zealously to the same customers to ‘develop’ the relationship.

But, because of the increasing overheads, there’s pressure for ROI, and the sole objective of calling is to increase profitability through new technology.

Pitching sales?

Customers, however, are unimpressed. They evaluate service. For example, as one relates –

Bank’s credit card people constantly bombard me with unwanted loan offers… I called them for help with a relatively small credit limit enhancement on my card, but was told to ‘first apply for a loan’… Soon enough they came up with the ‘prize’ of an upgrade to twenty times the original credit value! These tricks are offensive. My account is decades old, but perhaps I should now switch Banks.

Aggressive

‘Foot-in-the-door’ sales tactics have always been used to manipulate customer needs aggressively.

These old marketing habits remain. The difference is their being tied-in with the new use of technology - telemarketing.

Squeezing brand

Research says that 80 percent of the business comes from existing customers. The credit card business is (or should be) a value-added scheme built on the longer-term association.

‘Selling’ shouldn’t become browbeating, but often does. The company thus appears to be squeezing the brand relationship – the cornerstone of their success.

Emotional needs

Relationships in collectivistic societies like India are built on strong emotional elements.

Many customers are unappreciative of unwanted calls. Few also among the frontline salespeople making the calls are adept at telephonic conversations.

They generally lack both learning and experience in putting the customers’ emotional needs ahead of their own (and the company’s) agenda.

Human contact

The telemarketing process could well erode customer loyalty. Impersonal technology is uncomfortable for a people used to face-to-face human contact.

From customer viewpoint, interactions with the individual employees matter, to earn loyalty and trust for the company.

Buyer decisions

Companies in the Indian cultural context, should be concerned about how these interactions could affect buyer decisions.

Their own market image may be affected, since the average customer doesn’t differentiate between the individual employee and the institution.

Besides, since consumers today tend to think over their choices, these practices may just transform relationships to worse instead of better.

Social sensitivity

Impersonal technology-driven initiatives may thus backfire in the social context. If aggressive and insensitive, they eventually weaken the source of selling itself.

The ability to handle sensitive social cognitive processes seldom comes naturally. That means sales personnel pushed into customer relationship management need to learn how to handle the interface effectively.

From the business viewpoint, it’s crucial for frontline staff to develop their own social sensitivity and emotional intelligence before they tackle the onerous task of dealing with customer sentiments.

Comments/opinions anyone??

Costs: coping with ambiguity

Summary: [You might care to view the post “Costs: beyond preventive power” before this.] The job in the complex new global reality may well have become ambiguous, limitless and stressful. Balancing between various challenges isn’t easy.

Ultimately the company’s total performance is important. So knowing what and how of business processes isn’t with intent to interfere with them.

Short and long terms

This means understanding the contributions of various functions, business units, business managers, suppliers and so on. Their individual strengths and weaknesses have to be identified, and current performance explained.

The objective is to improve the collective performance. For instance, in the short-term, influencing efforts to create accountability, and stimulate better performance in specific units or departments.

Or they could also facilitate developing a long-term strategy for the company’s future survival, through the changing of processes or systems.

A well-functioning unit

With the hard facts at their fingertips, finance people are able to argue the point in current and day-to-day business needs, as well as facilitate the activity of the management think-tank in enterprise-wide or future initiatives.

This needs nurturing an atmosphere of mutual respect and trust. Active listening helps, besides a personal relationship built with each of the company’s department and business unit heads.

It also means recruiting and managing a highly skilled backup staff to analyze and collate data collected from the length and breadth of the system to produce meaningful information.

So Finance must be a well-functioning unit getting accurate data feeds in all situations, organizational forms or IT processes. Their credibility depends on it.

Limitless ambiguity

Some Heads of finance of earlier times appeared to be glued to an armchair out on the back porch, not to be disturbed!

Not any more. Their job in the complex new global reality of mergers, acquisitions, and regulatory scrutiny of conduct and compliance, may well have become ambiguous and limitless.

Keeping balance

Experienced CFOs have some advice on coping with on-the-job stress –

• Spend time to gain trust and credibility
• Prioritize consistently
• Listen before you act

Keeping a balance between the various challenges is not at all easy. On the job stress is mounting – a turnover of about 13 percent for Fortune 500 companies showed in 2006.

Adapt and perform

We begin to empathize with the human element! For people immersed in the numbers and unused to being pleasant and friendly, perhaps the best way to cope is to first find a mentor - and learn the art of communicating freely.

It’s a lonely job, they say. But if the company is to adapt and perform in the face of challenges, so must its key people.

Comments/opinions anyone??