Most organizational turnaround initiatives either end prematurely or wither away quickly after few initial successes. In Organizational Turnarounds with a Human Touch, author Baldev Seekri states that the issue is not the talent or sincerity of the orchestrating leaders, but rather the ignorance about the sequential nature of the transformation process and the lack of discipline to thwart leapfrogging tendencies. Based upon real turnaround successes spanning many countries and cultures, Seekri synthesizes practical results into principles and strategies that are universally applicable. He challenges and inspires organizations and individuals to accept and turn their situations around for positive outcomes. Organizational Turnarounds with a Human Touch provides a refreshing perspective by restoring the basics, redirecting the emphasis, propagating layman psychology, encouraging sequential learning, and savoring the aesthetics. At the heart of the turnaround process is the power of three elements of a simple mindset: simplicity first, complexity last; leadership-a basic human ability; and the theory that there is always a human solution. These elements can help propel struggling organizations and individuals from the deep sea of self-pity to soaring skies of possibilities.

Organizational Turnarounds With A Human Touch

By Baldev Seekri

Trafford Publishing

Copyright © 2011 Baldev K. Seekri
All right reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-4269-5611-9

Contents

Preface: Give Me the Formula.............................................................xiChapter 1 Simplicity First, Complexity Last..............................................3Chapter 2 Leadership Made Simple—Part 1............................................21Chapter 3 Leadership Made Simple—Part 2............................................38Chapter 4 There Is Always a Human Solution...............................................55Chapter 5 A Sequential Journey...........................................................75Chapter 6 Phase A: Orientation for the Journey...........................................89Chapter 7 Phase A: From Self-Pity to Self-Esteem.........................................107Chapter 8 Phase B: From Self-Esteem to Winning Attitude—Part 1.....................142Chapter 9 Phase B: From Self-Esteem to Winning Attitude—Part 2.....................170Chapter 10 Phase C: From Winning Attitude to Growing Confidence..........................199Chapter 11 Phase D: From Growing Confidence to Authentic Pride...........................237Chapter 12 Making Results Look Simple....................................................273Chapter 13 Developing Your Own Inspiring Knack...........................................288Chapter 14 Why This Process?.............................................................319Epilogue.................................................................................332Index....................................................................................343

Chapter One

Simplicity First, Complexity Last

The first and the foremost element of the simple mind-set, which I learned, developed, and reinforced throughout my professional life is

[right arrow] Simplicity First, Complexity Last [left arrow]

Through my work assignments, I had the privilege of witnessing human behavior at work in many cultures of the world (Asian, European, and American as well as Latin). My observations, reflections, and knowledge drew me to the strong conclusion that most of us seek complex solutions to the simple problems and opportunities of life and business.

This tendency to embrace complexity gets even more solidified as we increase our skills, acquire more knowledge, and achieve success or higher status. Somehow, becoming more and more complex becomes the trademark of our progress in life or business.

This progressive addiction to complexity fans our ego, and we develop a pseudo conviction that we are special, a rare brand, and an expert who should be the envy of others. However, with this egoist conviction and self-elevation of ourselves to a pedestal, our real accomplishments in life and business remain meager or mediocre at best. When asked about our at-best mediocre accomplishments, most of us are quick to point out that to achieve what we have achieved was hard and complex and that without our own expertise/mastery, it would not have been possible.

On the other hand, I have also witnessed a small minority who have achieved remarkable success in their personal or business lives. Not only did they choose the path of simplicity first, but with every success or accomplishment, they became more and more simple and egoless. Their own joy and satisfaction derived from their successes became contagious to others all around them. If you ask the same question to those people—"How was it?"—invariably, their answer will be, "I was fortunate to be there. It was simple, and I learned a lot from others."

What a stark difference in these two contradictory approaches resulting in mediocre accomplishments for self or remarkable accomplishments for self and others! The best part is that this difference was universal in all of the cultural work settings I have been involved with.

In my personal and professional life, I have always been fascinated with the unique behaviors and sustained accomplishments of this small minority, and through this fascination, my own learning for that uniqueness got nourished with time. Not only have I embraced and reinforced the principle of simplicity first in my life, but I have passionately encouraged and coached others to do the same for their growth and development.

What Differentiates?

Observing people in this small minority and reflecting on their behaviors for a long period of time, I have become convincingly confident that barring few exceptions, these people differentiate themselves from others through their learned ability on the following two fronts:

• View of life and work

• Consistency and passion for the chosen path

1. View of Life and Work

How life and work are viewed has a profound effect on the thoughts and behaviors of people. It plays a major role in determining the path to be followed and the results to be achieved. Since this is a learned ability, our own choices and efforts can be modeled if we are willing to explore this fascinating dimension. It is our choice whether we believe and follow the typical view of life and work or embrace an integrative view of life and work. Let us explore these two distinct dimensions starting with the typical view of life and work as illustrated below.

A TYPICAL VIEW OF LIFE AND WORK

Bombarded by explicit and implicit messages about life's brutality coupled with our own unexpected bad experiences in life, most of us view life as an endless saga of pains, sorrows, and disappointments. As events turn out to be contrary to our expectations, we are quick to blame life for its unfairness. This typical view of life held by most of us becomes more and more concrete as we start using it as a self-justification mechanism to reduce the pain of our unexpected failures and sorrows. So blaming life becomes an easy escape under the pretext of unfairness. On the other hand, when we achieve some successes, we do not credit life but only ourselves and take pride in our hard work, expertise, and judgment. This tendency to blame life's unfairness for our failures in reality prohibits us from understanding the causes of failures and disappointments. Aversion to finding answers or reasons, caused by our own sheltering in the cocoon of unfairness, makes us believe that because it is unfair, there are no explanations and so it has to be complex. This is how an ever-increasing feeling of unfairness leads to an ever-increasing feeling of complexity as we march on with our lives. Let us talk about work.

Work, which provides us our daily bread and is so essential for the fulfillment of the very purpose of life, is usually seen as an adversary and a necessary evil. This parallels what we have already discussed about the perceived unfairness of life. Like life, the workplace is also bombarded with explicit and implicit messages about the unfairness of work, and as we experience problems and difficulties in the workplace, the perceived unfairness gets solidified. However, there is another element in the workplace that boosts this perceived unfairness exponentially. That element is how work is structured, managed, rewarded, punished, and exploited. In most organizations, the shortcomings on this front foster incredibility, which progressively increases the perceived unfairness of work. So gradually, work, which is an integral part of our life, is viewed as an encroachment on life itself. Poor design and management of work coupled with exploitation by a few to enhance their own status, ego, and self-interests brings the unfair perception of work to a dangerous level. As most people feel this unfair situation out of their control, they start justifying their heightened unfair perception by believing that this activity called work is too complex to comprehend. This is how the shelter of complexity becomes the convenient choice for most of us in the workplace.

This shelter of complexity was the hallmark of all struggling and low-performing business units that I inherited. This was transparently evident on two fronts. First, the management team of each struggling business invariably told me that their business was different from others and very complex. This was their way of saying that their poor performance was due to the complexity of the business. Second, the shelter of complexity was deeply anchored in the design and management of work. There was a clear and a rigorous overemphasis on how to do the work and a significant underemphasis on why to do the work. Their work practices focused strongly on compliance to the mechanics of work and had nothing to do with an understanding of why that work effort was needed and for what purpose. So the management team as well as the balance of the organization was working very hard on the single dimension of how rather than the dual dimensions of how and why. This complexity-oriented belief and a sharp focus on the single dimension of work was the serious handicap that, despite their hard work and strict compliance with the execution of how, kept their organization struggling. The lack of understanding of the dual-dimensional nature of work and hiding that ignorance under the cover of complexity was the common trait of all those well-intentioned but low-achieving businesses, whether they were functioning with Asian or European or Japanese or American or Latin cultures. My biggest challenge and enjoyment in my professional life was to lift and move those struggling businesses from the shelter of complexity to the vast area of simplicity.

The typical view of life and work discussed above is what most of us embrace, reinforce, and perpetuate. By doing so, we limit our own potential and find justification in blaming life and work for their unfairness. As described earlier in the typical view, the process of deterioration goes like this:

The challenge for all of us is to break this vicious cycle. I would encourage everyone to start learning how to move out of these self-made boundaries of confinements. Unlike most of us, who by embracing the typical view of life and work have created our own boundaries and limitations, there is a small minority who have learned to view life and work in a completely different way, which I call an integrative view of life and work. By doing so, this very minority has made remarkable difference in their own life as well as in the lives of people all around them. When I reflect on those people who were either my mentors or my role models in my professional career, all of them, without exception, were not only staunch believers but also true practitioners of an integrative view of life, and work as illustrated below.

Contrary to the typical view, where life and work are adversaries and are considered as main culprits for failures and unhappiness, the integrative view looks at nature, life/business, work, and outcomes in an integrative relationship. Through their learned ability to understand this integrative relationship, the remarkably successful and happy people differentiate themselves from most of us who, unlike them, spend most of our personal and business lives with half-hearted involvement and mediocre achievements.

The nucleus of their integrative understanding is their learned affection for simplicity in every aspect of their thinking, doing, and relating. Simplicity is that mortar with which they assemble the building blocks of their activities and dreams. How they develop affection to simplicity is through learning from the best and not following typical myths and pseudo convictions.

Their urge to embrace simplicity is driven by observing the very vast, very precise, and very simple functioning of nature and their willingness to learn from the best, who throughout the history of humankind got and shared the precious insight that the functioning of this mysterious phenomenon of nature is based upon simplicity. Their awareness about the simple functioning of nature becomes their inspiration to view everything else with an angle of simplicity.

If we free ourselves from the bonds of pseudo convictions and myths created by our typical view of life and work and start with a sincere willingness to learn from remarkable people who shaped our world, we can also develop a learned ability to understand, embrace, and reinforce simplicity and can make a radical difference and accomplish a lot in our personal and business lives. We don't need a divine miracle to learn this but only a sincere willingness to pay attention to what the great people have discovered and shared. Let me give you a glimpse of what the great ones throughout our history have found.

PHILOSOPHERS

ARISTOTLE -> "We may assume the superiority Cetris Paribus of the demonstration which derives from fewer postulates or hypothesis."

AQUINA -> "If a thing can be done adequately by one, it is superfluous to do it by means of several; for we observe the nature does not employ two instruments where one suffices."

NEWTON -> "Nature is pleased with Simplicity and affects not the pomp of superfluous."

GALILEO -> "Nature does not multiply things unnecessarily; that she makes use of the easiest and simple means producing her effects; that she does nothing in vain and the like."

SCIENTISTS

LAVOISIER -> "If all of Chemistry can be explained in a satisfactory manner, without the help of Phlogiston, that is enough to render it infinitely likely that the principle does not exist, that it is a hypothetical substance, a gratuitous supposition. It is after all, a principle of logic not to multiply entities unnecessarily.

EINSTEIN -> "The grand aim of all science is to cover the greatest possible number of empirical facts by logical deductions from the smallest possible number of hypothesis or axioms."

ECONOMISTS -> Editors of Simplicity sent out surveys to 25 Nobel Laureates in economics. Almost all replied that simplicity played a role in their research, and that Simplicity is a desirable feature of economic theories.

BUSINESS LEADERS -> In every culture of the world, the remarkable business leaders have a common trait of embracing simplicity versus complexity. My own business experience is a testimony to the fact that whichever country or in whatever cultural setting the business was functioning, the business professionals who made the most positive impact on the business performance (whether they were new hires or presidents/CEOs) were those who always embraced and demonstrated simplicity. Perhaps the most compelling case for this argument is made by Jim Collins in his book Good to Great. Based upon decade-old research on what differentiates the really great companies from other good companies, Jim and his team has concluded that the leaders of the real great companies were full practitioners of simplicity. When all of those leaders of great companies were asked how they achieved remarkable and sustainable progress, the common answer from all those leaders was, "It was simple."

Just reflecting on the above insights of great philosophers, scientists, economists, and business leaders should be enough inspiration for all of us to ponder that if these great achievers who shaped our world view everything through the prism of simplicity, then what restricts us from following this path?

So inspired by nature's simple functioning, the great achievers view life, work, and outcomes in an integrative manner. The typical view of life and works sees them completely separate from each other; by doing so, it gets astray and they embrace complexity as a needed shelter. The integrative view helps us to understand that the outcomes (good or bad) are simply essential to make work (activity) refined or better. The better the work is, the more simply potent it is to fulfill the purpose of life and business, and the more we fulfill the purpose of life/business, the more we simply start becoming part of nature itself, which is infinite in growth and bliss.

Let us be clear about one thing. These great achievers who embrace simplicity through an integrative view of life and work do not live in a dream world. They do not consider life a bed of roses or business a piece of cake. They have no illusion about the uncertainties and challenges of life and business. They are also fully conscious of the fact that as man-made systems and organizations take a larger shape, they enter into the domain of complexity as the variety (distinction) and dependency (connection) of various aspects increase. However, due to their ever-increasing learning ability about simplicity through the integrative view of life and work, their starting point is always through simplicity and they condition themselves to view successes, challenges, and uncertainties as essential outcomes in the total integrative process. By doing so, they become masters of capitalizing on successes as well as on failures.

If we are willing to learn from these great organizations and great leaders and are anxious to start on the path of developing our own ability to demonstrate simplicity first and complexity last, then our first baby step is to understand and embrace the integrative view of life and work.

2. Consistency and Passion for the Chosen Path

Remarkable people and organizations also differentiate from others by developing an enhanced learned ability of path selection and execution. Naturally, through their comprehension of the integrative relationship of nature, life, work, and outcomes and through their developed affection for simplicity, they are always attracted to choose a path of simplicity. In contrast, most others, due to their confused state of helplessness and dependence caused by their attachment to the traditional view, always look for the path of complexity.

Whereas the simplicity path adapts to changes by treating them as natural variations and opportunities for learning, contribution, and growth, the complexity path is baffled by these variations and views them as unfair curveballs of life or work. That confusion leads to changing course multiple times, looking for a panacea, or an outright dependence on somebody else to get out of the nasty whirlpool of constant change.

Fragmented and multiple changing strategies are clearly reflected in the work styles of struggling people as well as in a struggling organizations.

How do some people and some organizations achieve remarkable and sustainable success through this path of simplicity, and what can we do to understand their approach and learn to become one of them? Most of us will find justification in the assumption that somehow this ability is in their DNA and we should not even try to approach this subject because we are different from them. This is a convenient escape. There is a vast arena of opportunity for all of us to learn from these remarkable people and organizations by understanding their thoughts and behaviors. By doing so, you (like me) will come to the conclusion that these great ones have achieved greatness, to a large extent, by learning to execute the chosen path of simplicity with consistency and passion.

Through a lifetime of reflection and association with many great people in business and personal life, I have observed the following common traits of these remarkable people and organizations in executing the path of simplicity with consistency and passion:

A: Simple integrated concept of purpose and strategy for clear comprehension

B: Simple articulation of purpose for clear association

C: Simple clarity of results and effort relationship for right focus

(Continues...)

Excerpted from Organizational Turnarounds With A Human Touchby Baldev Seekri Copyright © 2011 by Baldev K. Seekri. Excerpted by permission of Trafford Publishing. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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