Beyond The Obvious

A good friend, Amol Palekar, star of some wonderful movies in a previous era

and a director and producer of a new genre of Bollywood movies told me an

interesting story the other evening-he was entertaining a good friend from

Kolkata, Badal Sircar, in Mumbai some years ago when he found that Badal da had

never been to a movie set. Driving him to Film city, their first stop was at a

studio where shooting was in progress with a Bengali star. The hero of many

action movies, who, to Amol's surprise, showed no recognition when introduced

to one of Bengal's most reputed literary sons. At the next set, a superstar

who had also spent significant time in the East was introduced to Badal Sircar

and to Amol's utter consternation, also showed the same lack of response or

even recognition. Nearly disheartened at this lack of literary awareness, Amol

was almost reluctant to introduce Badal to the next star they met, actress

Parveen Babi. And then came the surprise.  Ms

Babi welcomed the introduction, having been a fan of Badal Sircar for many years

and showed intimate knowledge of his work in the conversation that ensued-an

unexpected, but a very pleasant surprise!

In case any of you readers have begun to wonder whether you have picked up a

film magazine by mistake instead of your favorite Dataquest, let me come to the

point of this story-that most of us fool ourselves through the obvious

conclusions that we come to-about people, customers, and processes! At a

seminar with the CIO community of Dallas recently, I was waxing eloquent about

the virtues of SEI CMMI Level 5 processes and the effectiveness of Indian

companies in mapping and reengineering complex processes, when I noticed a

glazed look in the eyes of a couple of participants. At dinner, one of them told

us that their biggest worry was their ability to work with Indian companies with

advanced quality systems when their own systems were 'max CMM one and a

half'. Of course that quickly made me change my story from process maturity to

process flexibility and taught me one more lesson on what customers really want

to hear!

The same need to look beyond the obvious, is apparent in our dealings with IT

people. Too much talk about the war for talent and the growing mercenary

behavior of the new generation of IT and BPO professionals has distracted

attention from the core needs of people, which goes way beyond the obvious

hygiene need for paying more and more money. What young people in their first or

second job need is a sense of connectedness with the organization they join.

What goes wrong then in both the IT and BPO sector? While it is all too easy

to externalize the problem and blame the onslaught of multinational firms, for

the 20% and higher attrition that companies are beginning to report, the reality

is that the fault very often lies within the organization itself. In the hectic

pace that most management teams set for themselves, and their urgency to acquire

new assets and buy new teams of companies through M&A, the living asset that

seeks attention gets ignored quite often. The industry today, needs more than

ever before, much more people centricity in its leaders; and the success stories

of tomorrow will be those firms, which are able to build a compelling vision,

share it with all the teams and take the whole organization along as willing

partners in the mission to attain their goals.

Finally, back to the mutual learning with the film world this year it seems

that IT folks have turned their attention to creative arts with a vengeance. The

exquisitely mounted movie Banaras produced by an IT CEO LC Singh, may have

failed to make too much of an impact at the box office, but now the release of

Quest, the maiden attempt of five women from India and abroad, all with

significant connections to the IT industry is awaited. Will Amol Palekar, the

intelligent and articulate producer and director of Quest prove that Indian IT

creativity can also shine on celluloid? Watch the space and the screen near you,

not your laptop screen this time!