We are more of both these days: Insensitive & Sensitive

It is not wrong when people think that the world has become a smaller place these days. People travel a lot more frequently, and many more do, from almost anywhere in the world to almost anywhere else…communication across the globe does happen a lot easily in 21^st century than even the last decade of 20^th century…and well, yes, ideas originating in one person’s mind can spread across the globe like wild fire, which has led to revolutions (Arab springs) to throw out unpopular governments.

Technology, of one form or another, is at the root of such sea-change in the way people work, relax, communicate, share, and live now. With all these changes, there is a dichotomous behavioural change happening as well – as a society, we are becoming more of both, insensitive (inconsiderate) and sensitive (thin-skinned) at the same time...insensitive towards others, sensitive w.r.t. our own thoughts / ideology / beliefs.

On one hand, it has become important to promote the concept of ‘freedom of speech’, allowing anyone to say anything (let’s say within some legal & moral limits), yet on the other hand acceptance of another person’s opposing views to our own is next to impossible. It is almost like this: I have a thought, I want to share with the world, this thought can potentially hurt some, but what do I care – via freedom of speech, I have a right to say anything to anyone. This is how we show insensitivity. At the same time, there are more people just waiting to be offended by this thought – even when it comes from someone as insignificant as me. Thus, showing sensitivity of stupid levels, where religion / faith get threatened by few words.

How can we become such fools – promote a concept as a basic right in our society, and at the same time not put the same concept to practise when it is required the most?

I believe, just as mother nature is all about equilibrium, human nature too needs balance. If one set of humans become better on something than they used to be, then at the same time, some other set of humans must become worse at the same thing, than they used to be. Thus – becoming more of both: insensitive and sensitive at the same time!

Role of Business Schools in Preparing 21st Century Managers

It is obvious that business education is one of the most sought after degrees in the world, for corporate job-seekers. Business schools pride themselves in preparing managers for the business world – those who can manage, and lead, in a complex environment. Thus, business schools demand respect, both from prospective students and from the academicians – with success of alumni getting directly linked to quality of business school’s programme.

One of the challenges facing business schools is a simple one, is education their business and students their customers, or do the schools have responsibility towards quality of managers supplied from their stable. If it is simply the former, then teaching will mean one-way knowledge imparting, end of matter! However, it is quite unlikely that such a business school will manage world repute and rankings. Knock-on effect will be fewer applicants, lower quality intake, poorer managers being supplied to corporate world, and finally business school not getting the benefit of successful alumni.

It is, thus, clearly understood that business schools’ success is closely related to the quality of managers they produce. Thus, it is in their own best interest to invest in preparing managers who not only know how to manage businesses, but also are prepared to operate in the complex, uncertain and shaky business environment of the 21^st century.

As our world is becoming more complex, due to socio-economic challenges, political uncertainty and technological developments, and social media becoming a tool in the hands of general masses, we see that managers are under unprecedented pressure. If the world is becoming more complex, indeed business management is becoming more challenging as well.

Lastly, there is a concept of corporate psychopaths and bullies in workplace that bring harm to not only teams they work in, but also to organisations (as a whole) that they work for. Although, quite few, corporate psychopaths and bullies are known to exist, and are destructive in nature.

Questions that need consideration are: has business education changed with changing times, can business schools identify potential psychopaths and / or bullies before they reach out to the corporate world, are business schools doing enough to prepare managers for some of the management challenges that will be faced only in the 21^st century, and finally, is the challenge greater in lack of business acumen / understanding or more to do with people - their behaviour, attitude, and biases?

When some of the businesses fail, and many do, impact of failure is not felt beyond people who were directly involved with these businesses – such as, the owners, the investors and the employees. Most of these failures have little to no impact on suppliers and customers. However, in last two decades, there have been failures of greater magnitude – Enron and the subprime mortgage crisis are two examples of business failures that had a widespread impact – not only on the people involved in these businesses, but also on their suppliers (Arthur Anderson, in the case of Enron) and world economy.

Are we to assume that managers at Enron, Arthur Anderson and all the financial institutions dealing with subprime mortgages were ill-equipped to manage businesses or that all these people were pure evil? There must be some other explanation to these failures.

Bazerman and Tenbrunsel have given a possible explanation in their book – Blind Spots. As per them, these failures are more due to ethical failures and biases going unchecked. It is interesting to observe here that in their book, Blind Spots, Bazerman and Tenbrunsel have made a note for the possibility of managers not seeing their decisions (and behaviour) as unethical, and directing the discussion towards “blind spots” or sub-conscious biases. As per the authors, these blind spots are essentially gaps between the person, an individual thinks he / she is, and the actual person he / she really is.

Daniel Kahneman, in his book Thinking, Fast and Slow, provides some additional concepts that help us understand why managers may take decisions that are not in best long-term interests (neither for their companies, nor for public at large). Kahneman’s description of Systems 1 (automatic) & 2 (conscious) and his concept of WYSIATI help us understand decision making better. Post-event, hindsight bias and outcome bias, are some other important concepts that Kahneman brings to life in his book.

Subprime mortgage crisis is unique in a way that it involved not only managers from the business world, but also general public. Failure to think through the eventual outcome of the bubble that was getting bigger (and bigger), is a good example of Kahneman’s concept of – What You See, Is All There Is (WYSIATI). Members of general public got mortgages, when their System 2 (conscious) was incapable to computing their own worthiness to get a mortgage. This inability led them to believe the rosy picture shown to them, by mortgage agents, and decisions were made solely on the discretion of System 1 (automatic) – and that is quintessential WYSIATI.

Managers at financial institutions, sales agents and insurance companies were smart enough to know (and understand) the bubble, and its implications. For them, it is not that their System 2 was incapable or failed, but WYSIATI, clubbed with overconfidence and short-termism, led them away from checking, controlling and stopping the bubble from becoming bigger.

Importance of post-event hindsight bias and outcome bias is a strong one, especially to understand whether it was an individual, an organisation or an entire system that was at fault. Post-event investigations, evaluations, recommendations and conclusions are all for one purpose – know what happened, why it happened, what needs to be in future in order the same doesn’t happen again (for a failure related issue). However, if all this analysis is done with hindsight bias (that suggests so-called experts “knew” there was a problem – essentially that they know all variables involved), and outcome bias (that suggests if the outcome is bad, someone must be at fault) then the output of the analysis would be neither fair nor accurate.

Discovering that such blind spots exist, and accepting individual fallibility due to these blind spots / biases are the first steps managers need to take to improve their chances of succeeding. Although the works of Bazerman and Tenbrunsel, and Kahneman, provide just that – it is critical to know what should be done now that this knowledge is acquired. It is also important to know all institutions involved, at various stages, that hold power to influence sound decision-making and improve managers’ ability.

It is for this that one should look at Nudge – a book co-authored by Thaler and Sunstein. Their views on choice architecture, nudge-in-the-desired-direction, and priming help explain some of the ways managerial decision making can be improved – both in public and private sector.

Finally, another important area to understand is that of corporate psychopaths. Research conducted about corporate psychopaths by Clive Boddy, shows that “26% of bullying is accounted for by 1% of employee population, those who are Corporate Psychopaths”. Boddy describes workplace bullying as – “repeated unethical and unfavourable treatment of one person by another in the workplace.”, which costs UK economy nearly £18 billion due to staff turnover and loss in productivity. In another study, conducted by a forensic psychologist, Mr. Nathan Brooks, it is suggested that 1 in 5 CEOs are psychopaths, while this number is 1 in 100 in general public.

With nearly 1 in 3 CEOs, of FT500 companies (as of December 2015), having studied at a business school for their MBA, one cannot but think there is some responsibility that resides with business schools to prepare better managers (and leaders). With business failures (some examples discussed above) and corporate psychopaths costing billions, business schools cannot separate business education from how business is practiced.

There are two clear areas that are still lacking in business school education – firstly, the curriculum is prepared and taught in vertical silos (marketing, finance, HR etc.) and secondly, behavioural sciences as a subject is still not treated as a core module by majority of business schools.

Many economists have cited “working in silos” as a major reason for general failure to predict financial crisis that hit the world economy in 2008. A letter, written by eminent economists, explaining why this financial crisis was not caught and controlled well in time, was sent to Queen Elizabeth II. This group of economists suggest that although everyone was doing the job they were paid to do, and doing a good job, but no one could see the whole picture. A typical environment of everyone working in their respective silos, without a concern towards how their decisions have an impact on others or other departments. One cannot help but think, this is yet another case of WYSIATI.

As long as business schools do not prepare a way of teaching that cuts across the departmental verticals, these silos would continue to exist and problems would occur. A marketing manager will continue to blame the production manager for poor turn-around time of new designs, and production manager would continue to blame marketing manager of irrational promises and impossible time-lines. There will be, and are, many similar inter-departmental business problems that frequently occur.

Another way to look at it is concept of System 1 & System 2. When work life forces employees to think in silos, and business schools teach students in silos – for an individual who starts working after completing undergraduate studies, works for a few years and decides to enrol for a business degree – his / her System 2 (conscious) is only prepared for operating in silos – there is no input that suggests otherwise. Needless to say, System 1 (automatic) is not built to think of all possible implications or repercussions of decisions. An individual ends up reacting, rather be proactive.

The second missing aspect from business school education, as noted earlier, is lack of focus on behavioural sciences as a core subject. Business schools still believe they, first, need to prepare future-leaders by teaching them subjects of business – such as, marketing, finance, HR etc. – but not behaviour sciences. For most schools, business ethics is talked about – only as a topic, not a subject. If ethics are just a topic, inherent biases and their impact is only a sub-topic.

As cited by Bazerman and Tenbrunsel, in their book Blind Spots, in 2009, after the financial crisis of 2008, 33 second-year students of Harvard Business School wrote an oath of ethicality – an example of how business school missed talking about ethics on its own, and students picked it up. There are obvious doubts on the success of such an oath, or even the sincerity of students who are signing it, however Thaler and Sunstein suggest in their book, Nudge, that such an oath when signed can work on brain’s automatic system – they called this effect as “priming”.

There is some weight in this concept – the comparison is between an oath being signed and no oath being signed. The concept of priming would affect some, if not all, however it will have an impact on improving overall ethicality of managers – which, in this case starts at a business school.

A strong argument in favour of promoting behaviour sciences as a subject, from elective to core, is the cost to businesses (and economies) due to poor judgement calls, unethical decisions, or bullying. It is no longer enough to go to a business school and learn how to manage a business, but it is increasingly becoming important to go to a business school to become a better manager.

Once again, taking from Thaler and Sunstein’s book, Nudge, this is a matter of choice architecture. By making behavioural science an elective, business schools send a message that this subject is not critical for business manager’s work-life. A message of this kind suggests problems arising due to biases and ethical dilemmas are either not difficult to manage, or not frequent enough to cost individuals much in their respective careers.

So far the discussion has been about what is taught in a business school, and what should be made more prominent than it is today. The curriculum changes will not be enough to manage harm of corporate psychopaths. As noted earlier in this essay, 1 in 5 CEOs are psychopaths and 1 in 3 CEOs (in FT500) have MBAs, thus 1 in 15 CEOs with MBA degree is a psychopath. Can, and should, business schools feel safe with this statistic? Given that within FT500, there will be a small number of business schools producing managers to become CEOs, this statistic is obviously higher for these “premier” business schools.

Although it is not reasonable to expect all prospective students to be made to take a psychopath test, however controlling it via change in curriculum and other priming tools (such as the oath) will definitely help.

Another way to identify such individuals early on could be group-work, with coach / facilitators that are trained to spot such behaviour. Group work puts individuals under pressure and brings out their true instincts. However, any such programme must be closely monitored and proper plan of action should be in place in case any individual is identified as a potential psychopath.

Although different business schools have different approaches to teaching - western world is more discussion oriented than eastern world, American schools focus for on class-participation than British schools etc. – there is a commonality of pushing students towards silo-thinking. Kahneman’s concept of WYSIATI is a limiting factor towards making good, long-term, judgement calls, and silo-thinking doesn’t allow the decision maker to think beyond the departmental / divisional problem he / she is trying to resolve.

It is time that business schools make use of Thaler and Sunstein’s concepts of choice architecture and priming, to not only improve regular curriculum but also to increase chances of their students avoiding unethical pitfalls on returning to the corporate world. Creating an Ethics committee, which could have participation from both the student body and professors, may be one way to inculcate importance of business ethics.

With the amount of research done for this essay, I am of the view that business schools have not understood (and accepted) the need to change, in order to prepare managers for the challenges business world faces. It is worth noting here that since I have personal experience of just one business school, this has led me to gather data from secondary sources and make use of some intelligent guess-work.

Finally, to me, it is clear that the current business school education format needs some creative inputs and additions...status quo isn't enough, and it can be more harmful than helpful in not-so-distant future. Whether an overall change is required or not, that depends on different business schools and their own philosophies, however change they must...all wouldn't just fall in place magically!

Seeking Self Is A Dynamic Challenge

It is a constant struggle, and a challenge as well to first understand our true self and then to follow it up by being our true self. Often, people live out their lives without much clarity about who they are – thus it is unfair to expect that these people will successfully manage to live & act in a manner that is true to them. Consistency of thought and action defines strong character, and lack of consistency is just the opposite.

This post is for those who believe they have achieved consistency in life – through thought and action both. The questions for them are: is this consistency enough to continue to live with? What’s their next challenge? How are they developing themselves further? Unless the world, in general, or the society, at large, depends on the consistency of these individuals – my view is, everyone needs to continue to develop and move ahead – in simplistic terms, not become stale and outdated.

It is not difficult to understand the challenge with respect to change – further development is change – most have worked hard to reach where they are at present (and feel consistency will be enough to carry them on), it isn’t easy to start working again towards the unknown. It is especially difficult to convince self, about the reasons for not letting up, for not resting, for not being at ease, for wanting to be fluid-like. From personal experiences, I can say all of this doesn’t even sound easy – living it is far from easy!

There is a flawed concept of “knowing” – we as people change, with time, with circumstances, with pressures, with will (and at times without). There are few aspects of our nature / character that remains consistent – however, our ability to use these aspects consistently is doubtful. Thus – consistency is not a concept that should give any pride or joy. Further – we should accept that we are not getting to know much about ourselves, because we are neither constant nor static. In order to want to know ourselves – we have to become seekers, someone who is in constant pursuit of knowing oneself.

If the concept of knowing is flawed, at the very least it is not dependable, there can’t be much value to be put on “being true to self”. Essentially, one person can be true to the person he / she is at that point in time – with changes due to factors mentioned above (and any other), people have to realise that being true means they change – leaving not much room for consistency.

In general, it is easier to (wrongly) convince ourselves that we are being consistent because that is our true self – when in reality all this can be simply due to fear of stepping out of our comfort zone. Doing the same things, the same way, helps us live out a routine, which gives us an illusion of control.

Is life simpler if we continue living the illusion? Yes, I would think so. I am constantly reminded of George Orwell’s words: “ignorance is strength”. The less we know, the less we question, the more the illusion continues to grow and the more we feel comfortable living the illusion.

Is life better if we continue living the illusion? I can’t say…for some, probably yes if they feel that is the best for them. However, for those who believe and claim to know themselves, and those who believe their consistency is based on this self-knowledge – this illusion of control, or even self-knowledge cannot be good. Unfortunately, these people are living in fool’s paradise.

Not long ago I heard Sadhguru Jaggi Vasudeva talk about India – as land of seekers, not necessarily of believers. Although in his thought, these “seekers” seek “mukti” – the ultimate freedom from existence – being an Indian, I too am a seeker, with a rather (much) simpler view. I seek to know myself, which is my ability to control myself, reduce my conscious and unconscious wrongs, and thus become a better human. After all, I control only my actions – beyond that, control is nothing but an illusion.

x

Will Terrorism Become Part of Life?

In last few years, it seems that there has been an increase in terrorist attacks across the world.  Even after decades of hearing about terrorism, feeling some of the pain and fear, and managing life around it - it still seems that such acts shock people. Part of 'win' for terrorism / terrorist attacks is to spread fear, not to let common people do what they do normally. Given this - doesn't an increase in frequency of attacks cause terrorism-led-caualty to become simply unfortunate, than fearful. Will terrorism continue to be shocking, or will it become part of life?

Some three decades ago (in 1980s) - cars were not commonly owned family transportation mode in India. However, a decade later (in 1990s) this scenario changed - and personal car usage has been increasing in India since. With this increase in usage, came the obvious element of accidents and deaths due to these accidents.

Most accidents were caused by human error - drunk driving, not focussed enough, not fresh enough, over-confidence, under-confidence, over-speeding etc. - fact being, accidents that could & should have been avoided had everyone involved was careful. Yet, these accidents happened!

While most accidents can be attributed to some form of human error, there are still some accidents that are simply unavoidable - an animal trying to cross the road in front of a fast moving car, mechanical / electrical failure etc. - fact is, these kind of unavoidable accidents do occur, and do cause death.

In my mind, the concept is rather simple. We have to look at how people in India have adapted to personal cars, have dealt with increasing frequency of accidents and death caused by it (whether that of the driver, or the person hit by the driver). We have to look at the millennials, especially, to learn something important from them. For them, these accidents may have become a part of life. The fact is this generation has grown up seeing cars, and they have accepted the good & the bad of it. Car accidents are no longer shocking - unfortunate, yes!

How does this relate to terrorism? One of the worst terrorist attacks, in recent past, has been the one in Manchester, targeting young children who had gone to attend a concert. The more these attacks happen, and impact children - whether directly, or through media - the more these children will grow up accepting terrorism as part of life...just as children of '80s in India grew up accepting car accidents. The more such acts / attacks become accepted, the more such acts / attacks lose significance. The more insignificant these acts / attacks become, the more people start living fearlessly. Ultimately, ghastly-ness and higher frequency is really going to work against the very purpose of terrorism!

  

My Confusion With What Is Indian...

"How do you solve a problem like Maria?

 How do you catch a cloud and pin it down?

 How do you find a word that means Maria?"

If there was one thing that I hadn't thought would trouble me, put me outside my comfort zone and leave me perplexed - during my MBA programme, was a set of questions about India (and Indian culture). I was born in India, have always studied and worked in India, and married an Indian (in India) - with these qualifications, it never occurred to me to question my knowledge or understanding of India (and Indian culture).

At the age of 37, I decided to challenge myself by not only going back to an academic programme (MBA) after 14 years gap, but also moving to the U.K. for this one-year MBA programme.  It was here that I was first asked - "do all Indians think / act like that...?" or "how does it happen in India...?" or "...is this acceptable in Indian culture...?" - these questions (and many more similar ones) made me realise two things:

a) so far, I had not thought of India as India (the country on the whole). My concept of India was built on a much smaller concept - "home & family". For the first time I realised that - I was born in Delhi, have almost always studied and worked in Delhi, and married an Indian (in Delhi). Just that I am not married to another Delhiite (she is a true-blue Indian, but a Bengali by birth).

b) There is nothing more than geography (being born on Indian soil) that is a common thread running across all Indians, which makes them Indian. It is not language (there are several hundred languages & dialects), it is not religion (there are sections of most world-religions followed across India), it is not food (every sub-region has a specific taste to food), it is not music or sports (yes, not even Cricket!)...ultimately, an Indian is an Indian only because he / she was born in India.

(Thoughts inspired by Sadhguru Jaggi Vasudeva's "who are hindus")

Initially, I answered all questions about India (and Indian culture) with my perceived understanding about India - that was primarily how I had experienced India - living in Delhi, and seeing other Indian places as holiday-destinations.

Moreover, I answered these questions with my value-system as the base - assuming most of India shared similar value-system. It was so easy to believe that since I have been in India all my life, and my family (both - immediate and extended) has been in India, that I have the same value-system as most Indians would have...but I was a million-miles away from reality.

To share a little about my MBA cohort - there are nearly 20 something Indians and less than 5 are from North India (let alone Delhi). These 20 something represent almost the entire length & breadth of India (none from the North East though). In this representation - I have observed inaccuracies of my understanding about Indian culture and value-systems, and the lack of a common thread across all individuals. The most interesting observation, for me, has been - each of these 20+ Indians of my cohort have similarly confused understanding about India (and Indian culture) on the whole. Then the question is: is there, or can there be, anything that is truly a common-thread running through all Indians?

If 20 something individuals are different and unique in their respective ideology, thought-process, belief & value-system - I cannot believe that 1.3 billion Indians can be (or should be) put in any one bucket - other than they all were either born on Indian soil, or to Indian parent(s).

It seems that such generalisations are part of human limitations, biases, psychology and need for 'a-system' (common form, understanding and society). In order to feel part of something bigger, something stronger than the self, immediate family and the extended family - we create the notion of society & culture, something that we can relate to. In the process, we super-impose our own thoughts & beliefs on the larger society. Whether this is true or not - it puts us at ease, gives us a sense of belonging and helps us believe there is some land that we can call as home.

Finally, to bring in the first management lesson I learned in during my MBA programme - the answer to all generic questions is the same... "it depends!".

It depends on the individual, who is looking at the problem (the object being questioned)...it depends on the context...it depends on the audience of the answer...it depends on alcohol consumed...it depends on theory of relativity!