The organisation I am employed with has many sister units. Each unit has its own work culture in terms of hierchical attitude, facilities, timings, behaviour towards new entrants, level of sincerity, products manufactured, industry served etc. infact a of plethora of differences between them and amongst them but a common thread of love runs through all these units, no not for the organisation as a whole but for the turnover, that again not of the organisation but for the respective unit to which the employee belongs, again this employee is not just any employee but the head of the unit he or she is concerned with. If just any employee is considered he or she is only concerned about the turnover of his or own dept. Anyways let it be, one cannot bother oneself for the whole world, there's lot under your chair to be worried about rather than looking under someone else'. But the thing that greatly amuses me and that I have experienced largely is the intense ownership feeling in each employee for his or her unit so much so that they have forgotten to belong to the whole organisation. In this span of one year I came across people of at least four units, and have heard pride in their words when they disclose about their units and then look down upon me when I do not flaunt the name of my unit with the same pride. Infact this difference among units is an issue big enough to be respected with a complete article on it. At present lets see what turnover means:
Some nice definitions of turnover are given in these links:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turnover
http://www.investorwords.com/5094/turnover.html
All I understood is what the company earns in a fixed period of time may be quarterly, halfyearly or anually is termed as turnover. Its the worth of the business done by the firm in a fixed time. No wonder the mania attached to it, the more the better. So far so good, but thats not all, the problem is not the turnover but that strong inherent desire to show that the target of turnover is achieved, by hook or crook, that is a different matter. And mind the words the "the strong inherent desire to show...." details need not be mentioned. Again no issues setting turnover targets and achieving them but the hook or crook thing does matters. There is a statement in Great Expectations by Charles Dickens " If you can never get oncommon by being hooked you can never get to it by being crooked.".
In an organisation such as mine, divided into many units a competition sort of is developed amongst units for achieving highest turnover, that is in turn to achieve as much possible turnover for the organisation as a whole. Here I strongly believe in this 'take care of your own home' policy of the organisation because it was never meant to divivde the organisation into caste and creed just like God never meant human beings to be divided into caste and creed and neither this policy was meant to creat an ugly cat race amongst the units for the turnover targets.Instead it was meant for better management and to develop a healthy competitve environment where each unit develop and imparts its learning to other and thereby the whole organisation develops, a healthy group study kind of thing. But alas sisters rarely do a group study, may be thats why they are called sister units. Finally what all this mayhem has resulted in, is each unit only trying to set up as higher targets as possible and achieve them anyhow or atleast somehow show that they are achieved and prove the other down, if not down atleast not let anyone come ahead.
Some nice definitions of turnover are given in these links:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turnover
http://www.investorwords.com/5094/turnover.html
All I understood is what the company earns in a fixed period of time may be quarterly, halfyearly or anually is termed as turnover. Its the worth of the business done by the firm in a fixed time. No wonder the mania attached to it, the more the better. So far so good, but thats not all, the problem is not the turnover but that strong inherent desire to show that the target of turnover is achieved, by hook or crook, that is a different matter. And mind the words the "the strong inherent desire to show...." details need not be mentioned. Again no issues setting turnover targets and achieving them but the hook or crook thing does matters. There is a statement in Great Expectations by Charles Dickens " If you can never get oncommon by being hooked you can never get to it by being crooked.".
In an organisation such as mine, divided into many units a competition sort of is developed amongst units for achieving highest turnover, that is in turn to achieve as much possible turnover for the organisation as a whole. Here I strongly believe in this 'take care of your own home' policy of the organisation because it was never meant to divivde the organisation into caste and creed just like God never meant human beings to be divided into caste and creed and neither this policy was meant to creat an ugly cat race amongst the units for the turnover targets.Instead it was meant for better management and to develop a healthy competitve environment where each unit develop and imparts its learning to other and thereby the whole organisation develops, a healthy group study kind of thing. But alas sisters rarely do a group study, may be thats why they are called sister units. Finally what all this mayhem has resulted in, is each unit only trying to set up as higher targets as possible and achieve them anyhow or atleast somehow show that they are achieved and prove the other down, if not down atleast not let anyone come ahead.
One aspect of this whole thing is competition with private sector, agreed that there is tough competition but then public sector is by public, born of public's money, we owe certain responsibility that private sector dosent. Even if this moral aspect is ignored, after all it's business, lets ponder are we actually competing private sector in this way, are we competing in quality, deadlines etc. Or just fooling ourselves? Forget all this only ask just any unit head, is the target really achieved and look into his eyes! There is just one madness to show that the much coveted turnover figure is achieved every year, every quarter and now every month, and so the only thing in mind is the turnover of this month, what all manipualtion is to be done to achieve that, what inspections are to be given waiver, what all procedures can be misused to show that the turnover is finally achieved. Its something like a crash diet course to achieve the much coveted figure. But then it should be remembered once the crash diet is over the ugly fat returns and becomes all the more rigid to remove from the body. Similarly it will become difficult to achieve the target year by year if we keep on inclining towards the these short term targets. One should not forget the example of banks that crashed because they were only worried about the month's target and no planning was done for the rainy day.
The most worrisome matter is that this attitude seems to be at its peak when the intake of new executives is at its peak. So what are they being taught? Compromise on engineering, manipulate procedures, waiver the inspections do anything but achieve the turnover. How long will an organisation go with such a taskforce, with this kind of nurturing of the future by the seniors? But the ones sitting on the high seat of responsiblity are only worried about the turnover achievement during their tenure. There are such funny instances of turnover mania amogst seniors, it amuses to hear when a dept head asks to get an inspection call a day or two after the drawings are just approved or when a senior level person asks to clear the two hundred sheet drawings in just one day, the specifications for equipments that will run the whole thermal powerplant are told to be prepared like two minute maggi noodles, indents are told to be issued like daily newspapers. When an engineer goes for inspection he is rarely told to inspect thoroughly and not to clear the material unless it is according to the specification, instead he is given a deadline to clear the material and get the dispatch done anyhow before the month end. The gross neglect of pure engineering and procedures is as dangerous as slow poison. But then since it is slow each dept head, unit head feels the death wont come in my tenure at least. In such big engineering organisations as mine, its not the turnover in one's tenure that will be remembered but the value addition done by each indivdual, the contribution and strategies developed to make the organistion stand the doom's day even after the person is gone. Those who are sitting up there must realise that their days in the organisation may be few and they may only be worried about the turnover, but if the organisation fails a few years after there farewell it is they who could not nurture it during their tenure and if the organisation stands strong long after they are gone it was they who laid its foundation. Its not the turnover that will keep the organisation going but the strong and standardised process and pure engineering with strict adherence to quality measures that will help the organise drive through thick and thin.
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