Page 197 - DMGT520_ORGANIZATION_CHANGE_AND_DEVELOPMENT

Organization Change and Development

Notes
and the environment. Again, under that umbrella, we can pretty much do what we like.
Apart from that, everything else is local. Everything else is in the hands of local
management. Emotional intelligence quotient – what is the integrity of executives is
critical. Jack Welch takes this view that executives need to have energy: they need to have
energy and they need to energize those around them, and as you know, highly energized
executives that are prepared to make the tough decisions are critical.
They have to be courageous. They have to be hardworking in this day and age. They have
to have commercial acumen—and we all measure these things. It is really important in a
lot of countries to have a sense of humor. A sense of humor transfers very well between
countries, as does integrity and diligence. There is not much point in dressing in a sarong
if one is in Indonesia or a dhoti if one is in India, because one is not going to become an
Indian or an Indonesian. But what one has to carry with himself or herself is his or her
integrity, diligence and knowledge and a good sense of humor.
Organizational Quotient
Organizational quotient in management not only works but is absolutely critical to the
way things work in any organization. You have to have a proven track record; you have
got to be trusted by the headquarters so that the leash that is given to you is quickly
withdrawn. You have got to know how the organization works. You have got to known
your way around and who to speak to if you want to be given decisions going in your
favor, what path to move in, in order to get that decision. It is really, really critical to
shortcut some of the processes. Everybody in any job feels like they have to add to value,
and sometimes that means not coming back with 50 questions; but if somebody on the
ground is really trusted, you find that those questions are reduced or disappear very
quickly.
Capability of co-ordinating across functions is critical. Our organization is functionally
driven, but if the top end of a corporate bank doesn’t want to do a deal and if you see that
it should go to the middle of the corporate bank, then you have to be able to transfer the
original discussion down or into the new matrix, to find somebody who is willing to
sponsor the deal. So knowing your way around is key and that helps drive headquarters
that is prepared to defer to local views. It has also to be believed that the man on the
ground has to be prepared to get his or her hands dirty, and you have got to, from time to
time, stir the pot a little bit just to get noticed if nothing else, and to convey to your parents
that you are actually doing something when actually it is the people under you who are
doing 101 different things.
Finally, it is ahead of the geographic that the ferocious BCCI too has a strong vested
interest in keeping things local it is important to have local latitude in terms of executing
strategy. I think this is really the only surround us. The world is probably high on luxury
goods but we are not really in that business, so for us, execution is very much a local
initiative and it’s very much local responsibility. If the guy on the ground doesn’t execute,
there is no doubt that he will himself be executed fairly quickly.

Finally, Jack Welch came and went as did the years, and although he is not as much of a
guru now as he used to be, he is very much a person to admire for what he did in GE. And,
to echo the opening remarks, “Our true core competency today is not manufacturing or
services but the global recruiting or nurturing the world’s best people and the cultivation
in them of an insatiable desire to learn, to stretch and do things better every day.” Without
the best people, you can have the best strategy, the best systems, the best of rapport
between the head office and the local office, but it simply won’t work, because you don’t
have the people to execute.

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