Tiding Over with Connected Organizations

One of the most encouraging features of an excellent second year MBA class I co-taught in Harvard Business School with Professor David Garvin recently, was the extent of awareness and keen interest shown by the bright young students in the characteristics of the Indian outsourcing industry. Fifty-seven of the 65 class participants, including the Professor of Leadership from Columbia Business School and research leaders from HBS Mumbai and Boston, asked exploratory and illuminating questions and set the tone for an exhilarating 90 mins!

The Zensar case study started with an idea that struck Prof Garvin, when he came for a keynote address at the Nasscom India Leadership Forum in 2010, that in times of flux, connected organizations would have better likelihood of success than more hierarchical and bureaucratic ones. Coming close on the heels of the Mindtree Knowledge Communities and TopCoder Programming Communities that were discussed by the same class, the ability to create vision communities of young associates bound by common aspirations and goals that would build a better strategy for firms, hit a chord with most of the participants.

Three points brought out by the class should resonate with human resource chiefs everywhere. First, that in young industries, it is not the Machiavellian concept of fear but emotional bonds of love that create collaborative teams across functional and geographical boundaries. Second, a strong process of disseminating the love culture across willing members of the organization through a strong partnership between line and human resource functions would be the way to go and lastly, the concept of the meritocracy where performance metrics have utmost importance cannot be compromised in an effort to create a connected organization.

The mixed bag of results for the fourth quarter and the year show that there is a clear need for a back to the drawing board approach in our industry. There is a definite shuffling of deck chairs in the top deck with TCS and Cognizant stealing a march over the rest, and HCL and Satyam emerging as challengers. Companies like Zensar and Hexaware continue to show confidence and the next 4-6 quarters will redefine the playing field. The opportunity for connected organizations to beat the field in lower attrition, higher customer and employee engagement, and consistency of performance will ensure that the Harvard case discussion is not lost, at least for many of us who participated in it and the industry will continue to push the envelope of HR practices in the coming years. These are exciting times for an industry which continues to be in flux. It is people and not processes or practices, who will make all the difference!