No-nos to Yes-yes! Snatch victory from the jaws of defeat!

TOUGH times are here with us. Salaries have been paid, it is true, but often two weeks after the due date. Embarrassments have happened with the credit card company. The promised celebration for the company has been `postponed' for a host of reasons the chief unsaid one being lack of ready finance. Good resources have left for pastures green and others are looking around. Productivity is at a long time low. A pall of negativity has clouded the organisation. These dismal thoughts cost money. People leaving costs money, people not caring costs money, and abstracted thought processes, which affect decision making costs money

Break Out!

Coming up from in down under there is a great sentence to demonstrate the use of prepositions, but it is tough for a person to emerge from his personal mire of depression. Its worse for a company to drag itself out of the morass of negativity.

A bend in the road ahead is not the end of the road... unless you fail to make the turn! You must be able to change with the times, with circumstances and with ideas. You need to make the effort to change direction, and the first push is a lot more difficult than the rest of the ride! Getting the right pusher is best and this is how its done!

Lynch Pins

Every organisation has a few people who are universally respected and generally liked. They may have no distinguished designation but are people to whom the others listen. If you can get them to see the merit of the idea, you can be fairly certain that the sense will permeate to the whole organisation.

Talking Turkey

Open communication is transparent. The head honchos can (and must) make a public statement to allay concerns that happen in all organisations. With company bottom lines collapsing like the towers at Battery Park, salaries are sometimes delayed. If this begins to happen rather more regularly than not, the feeling of insecurity is underscored. Everybody expects the axe to fall on them so a frank communication from the top man will come in as a relief. It is a good practice to frame the communication as answers to unasked questions. Also, people across the organisation should feel that rules are for everybody, including the senior most executives! Give people a reason to conform to regulations!

Politeness Pays

Some people in supervisory roles feel that they have the right to rant and rave at their subordinates. Organisational well-being on the other hand, demands unfailing courtesy to everybody! Treating an errant co-worker with courtesy will actually encourage him to pull up his socks. Shouting at him in public (or in private) will only antagonise him. As everybody knows, antagonism spreads like wildfire! As the popular saying goes, "Be kind; Always. The only thing you should do behind a person's back is pat it!"

Different Strokes

While many people pundits preach consistency, its nice to be different! Alter dicor, perhaps a new potted plant here and there, a fresh colour for one wall will take away from the boredom that becomes a fixed routine. Visual variety adds to renewed vigour.

One of my favourite sayings is: "Don't just do something! Sit There!" One thing people need is a shoulder to cry on, a human helpdesk that just happens to be there ready and willing to listen! Psychiatrists in America make fortunes by just being there to listen to people. True they offer solutions, mostly in terms of advice through fresh perspectives and explanations of conduct.

Indoor Outdoors

I conduct a regular `Grouse Hunt' in my organisation where everybody who has anything to complain about comes together with me in a vacant hall, and we thrash out problems. Often people come up with solutions for each other's issues and everybody goes away feeling that much lighter. Ground rules? Whatever is discussed in that hall is confidential and nothing gets back to their bosses that they don't want to. Often people would like something to be conveyed to the boss, but wouldn't like to do it in person, so they use me as the conduit. In short they eliminate their grouses more effectively than if they were to discuss it between themselves letting it fester in small outbreaks.

Endspeak

It is sad that should matters deteriorate to the extent that nobody trusts anybody else, there is precious little you can do but pick up the pieces and start from the beginning all over again with new people and a new vision. Once a culture is corrupted, you have no choice but to renew and regenerate. With the same people on board this is well nigh impossible as they have lost confidence in you. No matter what you do they will not believe you any more. Much better to bring in a fresh bunch so that you can wipe the slate clean and start on the right foot this time round! There will be people who will say that time is the best remedy, but that's not really true, because it will take a lot to overcome disgruntlement.

In fact it will be fastest to recovery if you bring in new blood after having swept all the debris and detritus out of the system first, otherwise you'll find the latter infecting the former with their negativity!

However if matters are not too far gone changing No-nos to Yes- yes is something that can be done with adroitness and quickness of mind.

Abhimanyu Acharya

abhi.hyd@cnkonline.com