Women, the elderly, privilege and responsibility

They seem willing to wear the cap of ignominy – many Indian women at work, I mean. Men roll their eyes when asked about these colleagues not without reason. If the personal preferences of these representatives in the workplace are the traditional gender roles, how can the women’s group as a whole even hope to have a viable organizational presence?

 

 

They project vibes of martyrdom, as if as good women, they wouldn’t step outside the home, except for the economics. They tend to take no pride in their work, and to treat the workplace as an extension of the home, oblivious to the fact that the organizational position is not meant to confer privilege or power, but responsibility first and foremost. By avoiding job responsibilities, these women hold the total group up to ridicule. 

The public comes to the organization with issues that need redressal, and organizational employees are designated to address them – this is the job they are paid for. No, it is not their fault that work-related issues arise. But surely they must be faulted when, although they can help resolve the issues, they do not. An incident report illustrates the point: 

My mother is in her eighties, and she receives a family pension through a national Bank. They have a rule, which she has quite diligently followed for the last two decades. It is to present herself at the local branch before the end of the calendar year to furnish life certificates to keep alive her pension accounts. Despite this, the pension payments have been withheld on occasion and her accounts sealed, for no reason other than that the life certificates submitted to them have been lost or misplaced.  Now she has been told to furnish her pension pay order (PPO) book to verify her authenticity. There should be at least two copies of the book – one at the Bank that collects pension on her behalf and one with the pensioner. These are created when the order is first received from the disbursing government authority. Now, although so directed to do so by the disbursing authority at the start of the family pension nearly twenty years ago, the Bank is yet to forward her copy of the PPO book. So how is the octogenarian pensioner to produce something she has not received in the first place? Whilst attempting to resurrect her pension, we found a new omission. According to the latest government circular about pension revisions, she is being underpaid - receiving each month several thousand rupees less than is her due.

With the hope of settling the issues at local level, we make our way to the pension cell at the local head office of this prominent national Bank. The women there, both the young and the middle-aged, are grim and unsmiling. I presume their presence is intended to reassure the pensioners, and help them over the sticky points, but they neither greet people, nor respond to greetings. Rather, they seem resentful to be called upon to do their jobs. We are directed to a particular desk. The incumbent’s chair is empty, and we are told we can get ourselves cups of tea whilst we wait. Eventually, the lady appears. She walks into the room with a mobile phone clasped to her ear, in earnest conversation with somebody about exchanging gift calendars for the New Year. Her joviality ends with the call, and she settles herself on the chair, and fiddles with some papers on the desk. Finally, ‘What?’ she asks abruptly without looking up. We begin our story, but her interest disengages. It is clear that she is not about to help in any way. She declares the government circulars of no consequence, and says the Bank will not change what they were already paying unless the pensioner brings a fresh order in her name from the original disbursing authority. And by the way, she is not there to receive letters/complaints from the public. 

Imagine for a moment the Government having to send out millions of individual letters every time there is a revision of pay and pension income scales at any level!  National Banks were given mandates for the convenience of reaching the monies to retirees and pensioners through their networks. Theirs is no charity; they are paid for the service. Pension cells, somebody said, are punishment assignments. It seems the people transferred there are those the organization would rather not have handle more important tasks!

However, it is disheartening to think that as a result, hundreds upon hundreds of hapless pensioners may be thus harassed. In a blogpost sometime ago, I pointed out that an important factor in the rise of multinational organizations in investment banking was the failure of national organizations to value their retirees and family pension holders. National Banks are still playing catch up in this industry, and the lack of customer-relationship skills within the system is evident. 

 

  

Some women in organizations strive for equality, but many others actually retard the group progress. Perhaps because job security tends to be high in Indian organizations, to many employees, the job means only what they can take home for themselves. Plagued by low self-esteem, they yearn for the privilege and power of the chair, and then actively avoid the associated responsibility.  Managements and unions should come together to ensure that those in service actually serve.  Quality of work should be the criterion in organizations, not reservations, even of gender. Especially in the pension cells, the incompetence foist upon elderly pensioners delays, even deprives them of their just rewards. They certainly deserve better for their years of dedicated service.

Drives on Kolkata roads

For the past so many months, my focus has been the roads of Kolkata, and driving on them myself. The need to improve spatial orientation was the motivation. What better way to know directions than actually discover the routes to different places myself? Bad idea, said family and friends, no sane person drives in this city. Well, then, I reasoned, since my sanity is so often questioned, perhaps I am indeed appropriately equipped to do so! Moreover, they told me frankly and kindly, an old dog can’t learn new tricks. So of course I felt goaded to try my hand at it! Truth is, the learning has been intense.    

 
In Kolkata, value is on size. The hierarchy on the roads is based on this parameter – from the pedestrian to two-, three-, four-wheelers and so on. Within each category of vehicle then, class matters. A luxury SUV, for example, scores over a small economical car. Yes, big assumes ascendancy, and their association with masculinity is strong. The car model I choose is for a minimal carbon footprint, and to better maneuver the narrow lanes and bylanes of the city, with their problems of parking space. However, it automatically relegates me to the low end of the scale, and raises social expectations of my giving way to those hierarchically superior.

It is common knowledge in this region that women have no affinity for things mechanical. Most believe that they cannot drive because of gender, and men have learnt to patronize them when they do. Women that want to get behind the wheel must expect to be put down or intimidated by the majority on the roads. They must take in stride the standard received wisdom yelled out to them: like, get a driver, or go home and cook, sister-in-law!
 

 

Random males I have encountered around the city, whether casual bystanders or themselves drivers, have presumed this ‘natural’ gender superiority. Many modern husbands are unsupportive of their wives driving, unable, they say, to bear the tension of them being out on the road. Many women in turn, prefer to remain within the bounds of their gilded cages. Those that can drive rarely venture out at peak traffic hours, or to areas unknown, and never drive heavier vehicles. Perhaps all this is to keep away from any public confrontation with men.

I put it down to family traditions being carried forward. It is customary for families to await the coming of sons rather than daughters. The production of an heir makes it easier on the mother. Else, her childbearing days do not end; the husband feels less of a man, and she is blamed for it. Mothers that suffer extreme low self-esteem, are hard on their daughters, but pamper their sons. From early childhood itself, girls are taught to wait on their brothers or any male visitor that happens along. They pick up after the little emperors that grow up expecting right of way and gender deference from all women. But, due to changing times and the disobedience of modern women, wishes are left unfulfilled and anxiety becomes generic.

 

Seems to me that the point is performance anxiety, rather than insanity on Kolkata roads. The women fear being judged in public, and Indian men are stricken with the irrational drive to get there first. The mad rush is to be on and off before anybody else. On trains and airplanes, they will block the aisles simply to prevent others from getting ahead of them. Even in a queue, it is usual to cut in before any woman that happens to be there, as she is unlikely to protest. They must impose, though ask them why and they probably have no answer. 

The same prevails while driving. The men driving bigger cars, taxis, trucks or even passenger buses, are in too much of a hurry getting to destinations they know not where to mind the traffic rules. Cutting past as the lights turn red or before they are green is rife. My car has been bumped and scraped several times just for being in the way. They hit and they run. If unable to escape, they invoke the ineptitude of women as the obvious cause of the accident. The police are seldom around and when they are on hand, they seem too preoccupied to notice or take action against them. The victim must find the nearest police station to report the matter, file a case to fight out in court, and deal with the insurance claims thereafter. In terms of time, money and effort, getting redressal is a Herculean task. Hence, it is futile to argue; the perpetrators get away scot-free, which they count on. 

It is true that driving in Kolkata is dicey. Roads are frequently wide enough for only one lane of cars to pass either way. Often cars parked on the sides have to be negotiated around, whilst being hounded by some impatient tailgater. Initially, it is scary to be on the road, because other vehicles pass so close. They are just inches away - sometimes deliberately, to force the less experienced off track, and women out of this assumed male bastion of roads.

However, as a wise veteran driver told me, everybody is afraid of failure, not just women behind the wheel. Socially at the receiving end, women have traditionally tended forge special bonds with their sons in private. This has been their investment for their future - to dominate their sons’ lives from behind the scenes, backseat driving. 

This behaviour pattern needs to change, and they need to self-actualize with their own abilities. In fact, on these roads, women drivers are forced out of their shells of social inhibition. This is the positive outcome, I experience. One gradually discovers method in the madness, and learns patterns of intent.

 

Women need to realize their adaptability to fluid situations through mastering two-, three- and four-wheelers. They need to get in the driver’s seat, to rely on their strengths of purpose to raise their self-esteem. They need to break the traditional mould and storm the male stronghold as it were, and drive themselves forward rather than be driven backseat. The process would enable them to increase visibility, to step out in numbers to create a stronger, more confident group presence in public.

The minute breadwinner

The incessant pounding disturbs my reverie. I glance out to locate the source of the irritant and my gaze is arrested by the little girl dressed in the traditional attire of a parrot-green ghagra (long skirt) in that must once have been gaudily eye-catching. She is perhaps three feet tall, her hair, glistening with oil, slicked back in tight pigtails. She looks barely past the toddler stage, no more than five years old. It seems incongruous that she sports a pair of dark glasses. Her small hands hold a long green-and-red pole twice her height. I suddenly realize she is tightrope walking.

The noise-makers are probably her parents – the man stands by drumming up business with a semblance of rhythm, while the woman squats down on the sidewalk to hammer out her tensions on a couple of metal plates. Beside them in a wicker basket, lies another baby, seemingly quite at home with the bedlam.

They have crossed bamboo poles about ten feet apart on the concrete road and strung a rope between them more or less horizontal to the ground to rig the makeshift prop. Obviously, the question of safety does not cross their minds – there is no helmet, no safety harness to secure the child, and no safety net below to catch her should she fall. She is entirely on her own, on the ‘platform’ raised six or seven feet above. Amidst the traffic speeding by with blaring horns, she focuses on parading back and forth on the rough jute rope that must hurt her bare feet.

With one misstep she could end up with a fractured skull, broken bones, or worse. My thoughts churn in moral outrage. How dare they thus expose the girl-child to danger? The man and woman could work; it was their bounden duty as parents, wasn’t it, to protect their children? Instead, they live off their earnings. The rest of us should not encourage such behaviour by watching; we should all just walk away and force them to change their exploitative habits, I nod to myself.

But then, I do not turn away. Seriously, what chances of survival does a nomadic family really have? As an offshoot of a gypsy tribe or a circus, they are outcasts of mainstream society. With no money, and no home, they are of the faceless millions living below the poverty line. They have no skills other than what they are doing right now, and no hope of steady employment.

Attracted by sight and sound, a small crowd of curious onlookers also gathers. Passersby stop, like me fascinated by the little aerialist. I smile to think how well this totally illiterate family is able to read crowd psychology. The little girl walks to the end of the rope, turns and sits down for a moment on the fork of the bamboos. In high treble she calls out. The man reaches up to hand her two small metal pots.  Placing them on her head, she stands up to resume her walk.

It dawns that she is gradually increasing the degree of difficulty of her act - first the goggles, now the pots. Her balance is perfect as it must be. She gets to the other end and calls again. This time she is handed a pair of bright pink plastic slippers. She wears them, replaces the pots on her head, adjusts her dark glasses, and sets off once more on her promenade.

In spite of me, I am impressed. This family is not begging, nor are they stealing. They put on display what they know, and the children take quickly to that way of life to survive in harsh reality. The parents passing on their craft to their children early, schools them in street-performer roles. Were I in their place, I wonder whether I could so accept reality, discover my worth and live by it.

Certainly they count on their children to shoulder the family burden, but in a country that cannot boast of social security for all its citizens, can we really be judgemental? Would any of us spare more than a cursory glance if the man or the woman were doing the same balancing act? No, not a chance! Hence, when we ourselves have no alternatives to offer for their survival, can we really brand them guilty of the crime of child exploitation?

How is this worse than the hugely popular reality shows on TV, sponsored by big business houses, that force little children to compete against one another in beauty pageants? They learn to be 'stars', to rely on botox, sunbeds and the streetwalker’s strut to get ahead, rather than hone an honest talent. 

The disciplined courage of this minute breadwinner shames us, who take privileges for granted. The little girl scrambles down from her perch, and while the father packs up the props, she and her mother each pick up a plate and hold them out wordlessly. The onlookers willingly drop therein their appreciations for the performance. I confess I do too – the child’s efforts deserve at least a full meal for the family before they move on.

Social: 5. The spirit of recovery

In March this year, Japan reeled under devastating blows from the environment. The country’s economic ascendency seemed to dissolve away in an instant before Nature’s fury, causing widespread trauma. Some authors say, however, that Japan’s economic decline began much earlier.

Familiar surroundings disappeared in the earthquake and tsunami.  The toll was at least 5,000 lives along with major infrastructure, leaving people lost and literally cold in the pre-spring weather.  Survivors of the destruction were left to grapple with shock and sudden adversity. Everywhere, writes a friend, almost no electivity, no water, no gas nor gasoline.

The worst environmental calamity in 140 years of that nation’s history has wiped out all traces of development. Even months later, the emotional distress persists, the friend writes:

It passed 3 months since that terrible earthquake attacked us. Since then until now I have been, somehow lethargic and do not want to do anything. But it was beginning of March and still cold and after March, April and May, now we are in June … and seems no changes happen … Northern Part of Japan, focus of the earthquake are still desert. So many people died and still so many missing, so many suffered a lot. On the other hand we are alive and so we have to live, exist…

Lethargy is but a natural reaction, a defence against trauma most unexpected. Many wonder why they have been left alive at all when all they hold dear in life is gone. In addition, looms the threat of a nuclear fallout that could affect generations. But not everything should be blamed on Nature – the lacks of foresight and openness to change are the human contributions to disaster.

Japan became the Asian superpower on the shoulders of its manufacturing prowess over the later half of the twentieth century, while China and India still grappled with burgeoning populations and poverty. Since globalization, however, these other countries appear to have picked up their pace of development, and they are being termed ‘the new economic frontier’.

Globalization showed up the cultural stagnation. The reason for it, as Japanese retail business leader Yanai perceives, is the people’s getting stuck into change-resistant ways. Ethnocentric preferences turn them inwards celebrating sameness, and in the process, gradually they lose adaptability to the outside world that is meanwhile changing differently.  

The business practices, Yanai writes, have also become introspective:

One problem is that we look down on developing countries… we lack the willingness to learn because we have been so successful before…  we are under the illusion that we are rich and superior … in Japan, income has stagnated for many people for a decade or more. Japan is still very comfortable to live in, if you are Japanese. But there’s a difference between being comfortable and being viable.

In the global forum, crucial business decisions rest on cultural awareness. Yet many Japanese company representatives are unwilling to accept that they can and do make mistakes. Similar people issues may have underlain Toyota’s automobile debacle overseas. Their chairman, summoned before a US Congressional hearing last year on the accident involvements of their cars, hung his attribution on employee confusion between sales and quality. Disgruntled consumers however, complained that repeated problem feedbacks to the company fell on deaf ears. 

The general organizational pattern is bureaucratic, built upon traditional ideals of the Japanese culture including dignity, honour, discipline, and strength.  But expectations of social respect in the collectivistic society, often prevents bottom-up feedback and the sharing of information.  The need to preserve hierarchy may then encourage cover-ups, and thus face-saving of the decision-making structure becomes paramount.  The attenuation of creativity may naturally follow, as may the corruption of power and resources. 

Yanai points out:

Most ordinary Japanese industries are bound up by government regulation, or by agreements (tacit or explicit) within the industry. The idea is to create a union or association or something and then use it to start imposing regulation and preventing competition.

In the recent nuclear crisis at Fukushima, the country’s prime minister himself received news about reactor explosions from media reports! In truth, the reactors were able to withstand the earthquake. Against the tsunami however, the safety measures were inadequate, since a deluge of its proportions had never been experienced or even considered before. The plant authorities did not admit the shortcomings, they chose instead to play down the nuclear threat.

Garthwaite writes:

[International agencies] criticized Japanese authorities for "working from a standard nuclear industry playbook” …  calling for "a frank appraisal of what is known and not known and the potential range of damage and consequences … verbal reassurances about low radiation levels stand in stark contrast to repeated increases in the radius of evacuations."

Post-catastrophe, big firms have become pessimistic about Japan’s business conditions. Economic recovery is not expected to be broad-based and household spending has decreased. The country may also face labour shortage because of its social imbalance - the biggest demographic age group being the oldest. In a nation largely of of retirees and disconnected youth, the effects of trauma may well tend to hopelessness.

Back decades in time, in the aftermath of World War II, a proud nation was brought to its knees, with the atomic bomb explosions at Hiroshima and Nagasaki destroying Japan socially and economically.  The people’s indomitable spirit of recovery raised the levels of creativity and industry to achieve new heights of economic glory. 

Clearly, the present ‘traditions’ of closedness and ethnocentricity are not part of the cultural inheritance. Perhaps these later additions to social learning were adopted to secure the preeminence of the manufacturing industry against foreign invasions.

Beech writes that imminent labour shortage has forced open to change the most traditional doors – in sumo wrestling. This sport, totally associated with Japanese culture, has been practiced for at least 1,500 years.  Its traditional secrets can be expected to remain within the ethnic fold. And yet, the top spots of the sport in Japan itself have been taken over by gaijans – foreign athletes from Mongolia, Bulgaria, and Estonia. 

Economics again has been responsible for the dearth of local talent. In earlier ages, families sent their children to the sumo “stables” to ensure that they were at least fed. In an affluent nation, hard labour is a thing of the past. The goal becomes college education, and thereby a comfortable life.  With few indigenous aspirants, the ancient sport faced extinction. 

The training schools set higher and more stringent standards for the outsiders. But they found that international wrestlers take all in stride – discrimination, indignities, language, diet, isolation, and socio-cultural hierarchy. The rigours they were subjected to in fact enabled them to come out on top. Sumo wrestling adapted to globalisation, and now enjoys a global following.

Beech writes:

After all, if this quintessentially Japanese sport can accept—and even celebrate—foreigners, perhaps the rest of the nation can do the same in other fields.

Indeed, change is a necessary part of evolution. The world has changed, and today in the global forums, people skills are required to survive and flourish.  Sharing does not diminish knowledge, it expands it. In new millennial businesses, collaboration and partnership are replacing merger and acquisition. 

Perhaps the cultural need of the devastated nation is to revisit the forgotten past, and resurrect the spirit of recovery that once brought the people up from absolutely nothing.  Although their emotional minds are now burdened, the people of Japan need to realize that the opportunity arises to once more resurge from devastation.  And little by little, as my Japanese friend mentions, time and nature heal the sorrow.

References for this post:

1.      Beech, Hannah. “Sumo wrestles with globalization” mckinseyquarterly.com. McKinsey Quarterly. McKinsey & Company. JUNE 2011.   

2.      Garthwaite, Josie. “How Is Japan’s Nuclear Disaster Different?” news.nationalgeographic.com. NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC Daily News. March 16, 2011. 

3. Kihara, Leika and Ishiguro, Rie. “WRAPUP 2-Japan business mood to recover from post-quake slump-tankan” reuters.com. REUTERS. Jul 1, 2011. 
4.  Yanai, Tadashi. “Dare to err” mckinseyquarterly.com. McKinsey Quarterly. McKinsey&Company. JUNE 2011.  

Appraisals: The drive to excel

Synopsis: The drive to excel comes from within. Management needs to facilitate the involvement of employee in decisions at work.


Extrinsic motivators, like monetary rewards, are generally relied upon to ensure the workflow. But with overuse they tend to carry unintended negative consequences.

Intrinsic motivation

For example, in the context of work, people begin to assume that the tasks are actually unpleasant and hence the money offered is actually the sugarcoating being offered. The employees may learn to expect extras every time a task is to be fulfilled.

Besides, the appreciation of the workforce as responsible, thinking human beings begins to diminish. Fact is the quality of performance depends not only on targets or incentives, but also on the emotional involvement of workforce members with the work decisions. Optimal work performance requires self-reliance, self-determination and intrinsic motivation. Basically, the drive to excel comes from within each person. People should want to work.

Once people buy in on a particular issue, their emotional arousal monitors and sustains the quality of their activity, through:

• Generation of action - the tendency, readiness and decision to act on a plan, intention or preferred option.
• Execution and control of action - the mode of execution and its degree of intensity.
• Explanation of action – the context perceived from a personal point of view.
• Rationale - justifications for the action.

Emotions influence the direction and energy of action performed, and are crucial for its success. Else, people simply go through the motions of doing.

Evolvement

Assumptions underlying the appraisals must change – for instance, that the individual is responsible for organizational success, and that improving their performance alone improves organizational performance.

The onus, the experts say is rather on the organization to create a different culture, and shift its business perspective from profits to people, from theory X to theory Y. Non-controlling positive feedback, and the acceptance of others’ perspective are important, contextually. Individual freedom, autonomy and trust during interactions with the organization and system-at-large needs support.

In diversity today, Frederick Taylor’s scientific management principle of separating decisions from work may have outlived its utility. The growing need is an evolvement from past practices. Because meanwhile, the quality of the workforce has changed drastically. It is now necessary to include workgroup members in work decisions.

The key areas

Authors Tom Coens and Mary Jenkins suggest a systems approach in key areas of human resources. The changes they advocate include:

Coaching - disconnecting its need from the PA process, and use goal setting only when it’s effective.
Feedback – initiating a bottom up process, moving employees towards gaining knowledge and new learning.
Motivation - developing intrinsic motivation so people find meaning in what they do.
Career pathways – decoupling promotions, career advancement, employee development, and downsizing decisions, from appraisals and each other.
Poor performers - helping the individual reach a satisfactory performance level, secure better job fit, or a respectful release.

Work output ultimately depends on the individual’s subjective commitment to the job. Appraisals should motivate people to generate optimal activity. But as post-mortems linked to reward and punishment, performance appraisals become intimidating and adversarial for the workforce.

Comments/opinions, anyone??

References for 'appraisals' blogposts:

Rethinking Performance Appraisals: A Book Review
About winning - carrots and sticks [article no. 1416 on twmacademy.com]

Appraisals: Measuring success?

Synopsis: With assumptions built into the performance appraisal process, context is generally missed.

Theorists say that each job should be directed towards the objectives of the business, the success of the whole. Performance appraisals (PA) are meant to identify and measure, so that this success may be managed.

The assumptions

Built into the PA process are assumptions that:

• One appraisal process can effectively serve several functions at the same time – like training, promotions, compensation, etc.
• People want and need to know where they stand, and appraisals tell them so, i.e., they provide accurate performance feedback.
• The organization and the supervisor are responsible for individual employees’ morale, performance, and development – and PAs help to motivate the employees.
  

The PA decides the organizational value of the people. It’s relied on to regulate outputs and manage resources.

Differing focus

But critics say that when management focus is solely on the bottomline, the targets set are often unrealistic and impossible to reach. In most companies, PAs also turn out to be the only source of employee feedback.

As a result employees may spend much of their time dissatisfied with their last review or dreading the next one. Their work focus then shifts – from actual performance on the job to calculation of rewards.

Inequity

Interest in the work itself diminishes, and workforce members compete for favours from authority instead. What gets measured gets done or enhanced. Obviously other aspects of the job may be ignored.

Employees realize that they don’t own their job decisions; they don’t have control over their work. And thence, many don’t feel accountable for it either. The sense of teamwork or a collective performance for the organization is lost. When the tasks are complex, or there is inequity between effort and remuneration, working hard may soon become hardly working!

The burden

One PA to feed many channels is a "bureaucratic burden" that interferes with performance and wastes resources. It pressures individual, group and organization, with numerous hours of preparation, extensive paperwork and psychologically stressful interactions. The employee at work is made to feel the sword of Damocles hanging overhead.

In knowledge-based situations, many managers are unhappy themselves with using the PA process on members of their teams. Documentation of individual performance could imply serious performance problems even when there aren’t any.

Missing context

Surveys conducted through the ‘90s showed that between 80 and 90 percent of appraisals are ineffective. Should organizations then stop measuring performance?

No, say performance consultants, because measurement of performance and its feedback is critical for a high performing unit. However, they point out, the performance appraisals as practiced, generally miss the “adult-to-adult context”.

Fact is the workforce is also an organizational stakeholder. In knowledge-based systems, their intellectual capacities form the business platform. It is difficult to pin numbers on these contributions. The organization that relies overly on targets achieved fails to recognise the efforts involved, and effects of the circumstances surrounding the performance process. It fails in its duty to its internal customers - the workforce - and in alienating them, loses long-term effectiveness.

Cont’d 2… the drive to excel

Accidents: The human factors

Synopsis: Contributing factors exist not just in the person but also in the dynamic, sometimes unknown surroundings.


Both novices and experienced personnel contribute to the human error causing 70 percent of accidents.

Levels of failure

Reporting systems are usually ineffective in identifying these human failures. Hence, while engineering or mechanical failures have significantly been reduced, human error ratios over four decades remain the same.

Researchers say that they actually occurs at four different levels that need appropriate analysis:

• Unsafe acts of operators, like errors or violations by aircrew.
• Preconditions for unsafe acts like physical, mental or psychological health of operators or crew resource mismanagement.
• Unsafe supervision, like inadequacy or violations of supervision, poorly planned operations, and failure to correct known problems.
• Organizational influences like resources management, organizational climate or operational processes.
  

Personality?

A study in 2001 held that a quarter of ‘human error’ accidents are attributable to personality. High or low scores on certain traits correlate with the ability to avoid accidents or be prone to them:

• Dependability – conscientious and socially responsible
• Agreeableness – not aggressive or self-centred
• Openness – learning from experience and accepting suggestions from others.
  

High scores on the first two and low scores on the last decrease the likelihood of accidents. Low scores on first two causes competitiveness, and non-compliance with safety regulations. High score on the last leaves people dreamy and increases accident risk.

Profiles

Studies on pilot profiles however, failed to find a typical personality type. Important traits are intelligence, self-confidence, emotional maturity, adaptability, extraversion, and action orientation with desire for challenge and success. Combat pilots score highly on abstract thinking, stress tolerance, decisiveness and resilience.

Essentially operators in hazardous jobs need to be practical, sober and dependable. But a point with jet pilots appears to be a close relationship with their fathers. Also of the first 23 US astronauts in space flight, 21 were ‘first-born’.

Regarding gender, men in aviation score higher in competitiveness but lower in expressivity and striving for achievements. Women pilots appear to be more extraverted, agreeable and conscientious, having less openness and neuroticism than their male counterparts.

The surroundings

But some say labels merely enable people to blame their mistakes on their personality type. The point is factors exist not just in the person but also in the dynamic, sometimes unknown surroundings represented by:

• Technology
• Procedures
• Physical and non-physical environment
• Other people
  

People generally don’t go out with intention of causing accidents, but how they react to situations is important. That means interactions between the individual and objects or people around them are just as important.

The dynamics

Researchers believe that tests homogenize groups and the resulting average obtained becomes the ‘right stuff’. This obscures variability, and actual motivations for the job, because training and operational performances tend to differ.

Operations brings into focus adaptability, coping with stress, and a more crucial aspect to success – teamwork. Rising environmental pressures can cause personality conflicts, with operators either internalizing negativity or projecting it on others. This interferes with interpersonal relationships and individual contributions to team effort.

Comments/opinions, anyone??

References for “Accidents” blogposts:

All 155 Survive as Pilot Ditches Plane in Hudson

A human error analysis

Are you accident prone? (twmacademy.com)

Identifying the accident prone

Personality studies in air crew

Accidents: Deviations from plan

Synopsis: A combination of random factors contributes to disaster happening - or being averted.


We tend to believe that forces beyond us control disasters. They happen following Murphy’s Law that everything that can go wrong, does. And, the people affected survive only by luck or chance.

Unexpected events

Disasters grow out of unexpected events interrupting or interfering with routine proceedings. They precipitate deviations from planned behaviour that invoke risks.

For example, the now-famous American Airways airliner 15(4)9 took off on a routine flight from La Guardia Airport, with about 156 people on board.

The flight path, however, crossed that of migratory birds. The plane collided with a flock of geese, within minutes of take off. Bird-hits are said to cost the American aviation industry up to 600 million USD annually.


Water rescue

The event caused both engines of the plane cut out, preventing its return to land. Using the icy waters as the only accessible runway, the captain ditched the plane into the Hudson River.

The most impact passengers suffered were being thrown against the seat ahead. The plane also stayed intact and level in the water, so they could clamber out onto the wings and floating door.

But experts say even five minutes’ exposure in those freezing temperatures would still have caused severe hypothermia if not fatalities.

Responders speeded up the rescue process, even driving an inflatable boat onto the plane’s wing. Paramedics found one passenger had broken legs and others with less serious injuries. Everybody, including an infant, survived the ordeal.

Random factors

The bird-hit damage raised the potential of disaster. But the skill and presence of mind of the aircrew and first responders on the ground made it a miraculous escape instead.

Not one isolated event, but a combination of random error factors contributes to disaster happening - or being averted. These include:

• Situational factors like atmospheric conditions
• Individual factors like perception, cognition and physiological responses of people
• Specific personal factors like vision, age, experience, perceptual style and perceptual-motor relationships
• Psychological qualities of the people involved

The Hudson miracle wasn’t all due to providence. While situational factors were the driving forces for disaster, the human factors - individual, personal and psychological - of key people withstood their power.

Processing state

The pilot, an airways safety consultant, former fighter pilot and commercial pilot for nearly three decades, also had extensive glider experience. He glided the plane onto water so it didn’t break up on impact. Since 9/11, ground rescue workers have trained long and hard at disaster management in different scenarios. Their combined competencies ensured that all aboard the ill-fated liner disembarked safely.

Every industry invests in safety, putting precautionary barriers especially in hazardous job situations. But the mere presence of procedures doesn’t guarantee safety. Each procedure also has inherent weaknesses or ‘blind spots’ whereby it only works under certain conditions, or up to a point.

Bridging the gap between the plan and reality needs creative thinking. It also depends upon individual ‘processing state’ – functioning at full alert to expect the unexpected, or multitasking on autopilot with attention divided.

Cont’d 2…The human factors

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??

Costs: beyond preventive power

Summary: The role of finance evolves beyond conserving resources. Now they have critical responsibilities for company performances.


Crashing Asian stock markets, rising oil prices and inflation, and a slowing of global economy, put costs foremost in people’s minds.

Conserving resources?

Organizationally, more than ever before Finance is the most important department.

I’d the impression that they considered their sole task to be conserving resources - wielding preventive power to hack down people’s budgetary requests and their creativity!

Perhaps finance people also need to better understand their role because no, their job isn’t only cutting costs, it seems.

The role evolves

As the world becomes increasingly complex the finance role is meant to evolve. Their task is less conserving resources and more ensuring that the system can perform, and long survive environmental challenges.

The job covers a wide range of activities from enterprise-wide initiatives to day-to-day business issues that need time, involvement and careful management.

Enhancing gains

Finance needs to fully understand each complicated process of the company’s business outlook, its competitive advantages, the returns on invested capital - money, as well as intellectual capital and commitment.

The first consideration is how much the company might gain from each of them. Second, how contributions of key process drivers may be enhanced, e.g., through sources of growth, better operations or changes in the business model.

Master information

Clearly, they can’t afford to be poor data processors or poor communicators.

Finance has to collect the data, master information that is available, value audit and help create a viable company strategy. That means they need to be far more visible than just the name on the door that people tiptoe past!

Various departmental heads, professional service providers, investors and customers, are stakeholders sharing markets or product lines – and all need financial services. But within the system and outside of it, differing needs, values, and perspectives exist.

Where company is going

They might recommend the cuts, downsizing or restructuring organizational form. But at the same time, they have to ensure the company’s not left poorer as a result. Their reassurances still investor panic.

The CFO have to keep close track of what’s happening in the company and where it’s headed. They’re the ones to break the news - especially when it’s bad!

Shareholders responsibility

Their focus, derived from the value audit, also speaks for the shareholders, to whom they are directly accountable.

Shareholders, this ‘sleeping giant’ of earlier times, have evolved too. Companies now have to contend with their savvy activism and growing expectations.

Leading consensus

Finance is like the company conscious, active in the decisional process facilitating group consensus to give shape to the company’s agenda.

They bring the objectivity to the table, counsel what can or can’t be done and at what expense – that is, lead the leaders, to achieve organizational goals.

The finance role has clearly moved beyond cutting costs at whim, toting the numbers, and closing the quarter on time. Now they have critical responsibilities for company performances.

Cont’d 2…coping with ambiguity

Survival: adapting for the future

Summary: [You might view the earlier post “Survival: executing performance” before this.] The bias of past experiences may negatively impact adaptability. Flexibility of form or social architecture is needed.


A reciprocal relationship with the environment the company finds itself in helps the process of its adapting.

The bias of experience

Our experience makes our thinking biased. We store in memory various schemas of what to do and how to do it from learning over years.

We assume that what’s worked in the past, will always work. Our thought structure becomes set. We dislike novelty in the processes we follow, and tend to resist change.

Unconscious biases, and our perceptual errors affect the quality of our decision-making. The overoptimistic reasons that change efforts aren’t urgent.

There’s a sense of complaisance. Resources then route to short-term processes, leaving future to take care of itself.

Soured ‘cream’

Companies generally organize into hierarchies. ‘Cream’ is at the top - the successful people who bring stability to the system and contribute largely to the company’s performances. All’s well, for a while.

With significant environmental change, however, they’re in shock. Past achievements don’t serve current purpose, because requirements have altered.

Researchers call this the hero-rogue syndrome: a CEO hailed for success in one environment, falls off a cliff in a new reality.

Systemic gridlock

Complex problem solving involves interdependencies that grow as the company’s size increases. Problems are fragmented to various departments. Successful coordination between them ensures reassembling the pieces in correct sequences.

The degrees of freedom drop. Conflicts and constraints appear during implementing. The system becomes gridlocked since positive change in one part impact negatively elsewhere. In highly interdependent set-ups, change appears impossible.

Simplify structure

How then can the system adapt? One way is through change in structure and processes. That is, redesigning the organizational form to:

• Reduce hierarchy
• Increase autonomy
• Encourage diversity.
  

Flatter organizations for example, are more agile and able to problem solve far more quickly.

But flatness, autonomy and diversity lose the control, coordination and consistency needed for complex problem solving.

Build flexibility

Obviously, an arbitrary change from one organizational form to another is not always feasible since organizations evolve in response to the problems they solve – simple or complex.

How can the system then adapt and perform? Research suggests another way. By instilling:

1. Cooperating norms – encourage trust, reciprocity and shared purpose.
2. Performing norms – create strong expectations for individual performance, rewarding initiatives, honesty and transparency.
3. Innovating norms - support experimentation and diversity, showing that facts matter and the best idea can come from anywhere, not necessarily from the top.

The social architecture

Adaptability may be developed addressing the organizational norms and culture building the flexibility to change, into the social architecture and the mindset.

This is a crucial requirement especially in an organization hoping to establish a presence in global diversity today.

Flexibility enables the system to adapt as it executes. As a result, there is significant value for longevity while sustaining the company’s performance.

Comments/opinions anyone??

Survival: executing performance

Summary: Most companies tend to focus on the short-term only. But those that perform well don’t last very long; if they survive time, performance is mediocre.

Most companies, like most people, tend to shift focus from long-term to short-term as they age.

Life expectancy

They prefer to concentrate on executing activities directly related to revenue flow that brings the sense of achievement.

However, while the life expectancy of people seems to be on the rise, that of business isn’t quite so.

For example, of the original Forbes 100 companies, in 1917, only thirteen have survived independently to the present day.

Trade off?

Researchers conclude that short-term performers execute very well – until the environment changes. Their competitive advantage declines, which few of them can re-create. Hence as a corporate entity they soon die.

Companies that survive time are adaptable. They withstand the ups and downs of economic, political, market and technological change. However, with a few rare exceptions, they return relatively mediocre or poor performances.

Business demands

Any business faces 2 basic demands:

• Executing current activities to survive today’s challenges
• Adapting those activities to survive tomorrow’s.
  

Both these demands compete for the same resources – money, people, time and performance.

Reactive controls

Theorists say available resources actually define and limit explorations. In fact, lack of resources constrains the company’s exploiting new opportunities. Tomorrow’s possibilities are also checked by the company’s need to execute today.

Familiar surroundings help performance. People can ‘read’ the conditions, anticipate minor changes, coordinate skills sets and consistently fulfil requirements.

But then they tend to become reactive, and prefer to control environments, events and people, so high performance (and revenue) may be sustained. And eventually they may attempt to prevent change.

Expect the unexpected

But continuity isn’t guaranteed in reality. The phenomenon of change is constant and uncontrollable; it will happen whether one wants it, or not.

There’s exposure to new places, new people, new processes and new realities. As a result, past behaviours must change. We need to prepare for the future, and to factor in the unexpected now.

Reciprocal relationships

To create the best product in the business today, tomorrow or whenever, the ability to be in synergy with change is crucial. We need to develop the willingness to learn to change with change to adapt to it.

In the process, anticipating change, getting used to increasingly unfamiliar surroundings, and incorporating innovations is important.

Reactivity fails in the long run because the system’s longevity depends crucially on this ability to adapt. The environment ultimately plays a significant role in any performance.

Cont’d 2… adapting for the future

Performance and personality: A last word?

Summary: [You might view the earlier posts “Are we bound by type?”, “Motivated drives”, “The need to win”, “Reactivity: the monkey business!” and “The process of adaptation” before this]. Adeptness and adaptiveness produce brilliant performance. Adequate preparations are needed. Management focus shouldn’t only be on costs and the bottomline.


How does personality relate to performance? You need to know your turf to defend it. a brilliant performance depends on how adept you are at the job, and how well you adapt to the existing conditions.

Match and rematch

Still on cricket, the T20 match between Australia and India at the MCG is a case in point. The one-off game was played after the controversial Test series.

Earlier, in the inaugural World Cup tournament, a young and inexperienced Indian team knocked out Australia (champions in the other two forms of the game), and went on win the tournament. In a ‘rematch’ in India, they did it again!

The host team made it third time lucky on home soil. They blew out the visitors in every department of the game – batting, bowling and fielding. Their scintillating performance gladdened their fans, and cricket-lovers everywhere.

Jet-lagged and clueless

The Indians’ much-hyped ‘explosive’ performance didn’t ignite. Essentially, they’d failed to adapt. There was also the additional stress of ‘defending’ the T20 world title.

Some players arrived only a day or two earlier, to a different geographical space, weather and time. They appeared lethargic and clueless about the conditions. Hence, counter plans lacked fizz, as did their self-confidence against the Australian powerhouse.

Eustress and distress

Situations and contexts differ. Getting acclimatized is stress – but eustress (good stress) that sharpens the faculties and helps the individual be aware, alert, and on their toes.

But distress (bad stress) has a paralysing effect. Challenges are perceived overwhelming, mentally and physically. Under pressure the individual is found flat-footed, and unable to cope. Assumptions don't coincide with reality, and nothing attempted seems to work.

When performance, or non-performance is the end result, people who pay to view an engrossing contest feel cheated – and disrespected by what seemed carelessness and, irresponsibility.

Not only a personal problem

Fact is players need to be in the zone to give off their best. Despite the resilience of youth these players were not! Match preparation should include space and time to balance out the adverse environmental effects on the individual.

Managements also are accountable here. Indeed, their focus shouldn’t only be on costs and the bottomline! They must provide the support and resources most conducive to their people functioning at their peak. This shouldn’t be left as a personal problem but generally in any organization, it is.

Comments/Opinions, Anyone??