Power, Trust & Responsibility

I admire the trapeze act in a circus. The idea of a trapeze that lets go of the swing takes a giant leap of faith while loosening his grip hoping the other person will be grabbing their hand on the other side defines teamwork and coordination in a lot of ways. In between the two swings is the space where the trapeze has the power to do all kinds of turns, twists and somersaults to enthrall the audience. This arrangement is completely flawless in itself as long as the two people in the act have faith in themselves, each other and are committed to their job at hand. In the rare case where there can be a failure of coordination, is the safety net which saves either from paying the ultimate price.

This arrangement is a very close analogy to the way organizations are structured and function. Like the circus manager, organization heads lay down the objectives, teams handling functions are given a target, the team leader assumes the role of playing the anchor to all activities and his team performs various tasks within the given framework to deliver results. The safety net is the organization and its top management which takes the onus of all activities done under its umbrella. Everything can function as smooth as a circus act till every unit maintains its decorum of duties and takes the responsibility for their actions.

The above arrangement basically eliminates the hierarchy structure in an organisation, empowers people within their spheres and decentralizes responsibilities to all involved. The output in true sense is built on teams and their collaboration and the credit for good work if shared can actually make work environments as fun as the circus. I can vouch for it considering I have worked at places where office strength has ranged from 30 to 300 to 500 to 1500.

The team of 30 was very well knit and this I must agree was the most enlightening phase of my professional life. Fact remains, it was more of each man for himself and if this were to go wrong, it was never more than two people who shared the blame for failure to deliver. When in a crunch scenario, it was an unwritten rule that the man at the helm of things is the man of the hour and is the one who takes the call. Results may vary as per the decision taken, but it made every person think twice and take an informed and thought out action.

Things did not change much even when I shifted to a placed that had over 300 employees, mainly because even then we functioned as an almost independent entity with our own targets, resources and at most times, decisions were always taken in a manner where every individual had to own up to the task at hand.  

As I have seen organisations of a bigger size, the chain of coordination has grown and strangely enough the equation of responsibility against decision making power has got greatly reduced. It was surprising that while a department comprised of about ten people, only about two or three had authority- the rest were merely a chain of execution. What came as a big surprise was that when I worked at a placed with 3000 people, authority is so very centralized that it was a cause of bottlenecks.

Image a scenario where a quick decision is required: the first person in the chain gets to understand the problem, escalate it to the next person and then gets through to the last person who takes the call. The urgency has to be firstly understood by two levels of gate keepers prior to it reaching the decision-makers. Not to forget, there is filtration of information at every level which in the end can be inaccurate. So not only I see delayed calls but also calls based on half burnt information. Also, the concentration of power at the apex has ruled the lower rungs happy to slip out of responsibility. All you have now are robots that follow orders.

I see this as a breakdown of the team structure. Responsibility and authority resides at the apex and the people below have no powers to take decisions neither the inclination for taking it either. The charm of power for the people at the top, at times don’t feel the need to delegate authority along with responsibility. With no power or freedom to take a decision, the people below are just means of execution and a channel to the top.

I find this absurd. How will people grow in an organisation? What happens to the high risk high dividend act which people should be encouraged to shoulder to fast pace the company? How will achievement be seen? It hardly surprising I see many people who have the romance with the companies of such sort and end up with 25 years in the same place with little or no aspirations. Not to mention, change is never going to come in a place like here as there is never a need felt for it. 

In an age when we feel that customers are low on patience and response time is the key, such attitude is actually building doom. I have heard that giant companies are like giants- they take time to get of their inertia but gather pace in giant steps. I really am not sure how valid this will be now as by the time the giant catches pace, the smaller bunnies make the dough- and when the giant comes at par, technology changes! Giant have to function as independent units with greater responsibility, authority delegated down the line if they wish to survive competition. Else the blades of grass will survive the storm and the giant oak will be uprooted.