A call for blurring the boundaries

Arguments and counter arguments are rife for blurring political borders. But, even as we advocate international cooperation, our minds draw boundaries within our workplace. We are introduced to people as “Sally from finance” or “Saloni from marketing”. These subliminal signals lead to sub conscious imagery of different islands within an organization. Ultimately, these notions manifest as a disconnected organization which executes operations without knowing the market, does marketing without knowing the product and runs conglomerates without knowing why.


Why would Six Sigma never provide the cool, easy efficiency of Mumbai dabbawallahs? Because, they have no Operations department which mystifies and measures every action. There is no marketing department to tell them that the sales charts indicate there is a demand for aloo parathas. There is no HR department which behests the cooks to work from 5:00am and make them play hopscotch in the name of team building. And yet, their efficiency, market responsiveness and motivation are the envy of companies which pay zillions to their COOs, CMOs and VP-HRs.

We would be beguiling ourselves if we thought this is just an organizational issue. Even government machineries are plagued with this. Why was Muhammad Yunus able to make a bigger difference to the lives of famine-hit Bangladeshis than all the government efforts put together? Because there was no finance ministry which wanted foreign investment. There was no agriculture ministry which wanted to divert rivers for irrigation. There was no environment ministry to object to the diversion of rivers. Importantly, there was no opposition which disagreed with everything the ruling party did. There was just one man who was the financier, the agriculture consultant and the human resource expert all rolled into one.

Why does Idea sell sim cards through a “hunny bunny” advertisement which has nothing to do with the product? Why does Tata want to sell a “cheap” car? Why do financial institutions make instruments so arcane that people buy gold just because it’s easier on the brain? Why are employees never “satisfied” or “motivated” (despite all the hopscotch in business suits)??

All these cases indicate an increasing de-link within organizations. Conflicts between parts cripple the whole. A business needs a holistic view of situations, not a stapled bunch of market report, financial analysis and HR analysis to be successful. An organization needs logical human beings willing to work together, not HRs who hate finance or operation managers who think marketing is stupid. We, as managers, must reinstitute the original credo of a unified organization.

“United we sell, divided we look like idiots”.
Courtesy: Lekshmy R.
Batch: 2012-14