With organisational transformations and frequent changes across organisational functions becoming hygiene, what are the challenges for business leaders? That was one of the subjects of discussion at the CII HR Summit in Mumbai on Friday.
“Driving change is best done by teams internally, rather than get a team and a leader from outside to drive organisational change. The leader driving change has to understand the DNA of the organisation,” said Mr Saugata Gupta, CEO - Consumer Products, Marico Ltd.
He emphasised that without a ‘strategic unity' at least among the leadership at the company, on the change being effected, the transformation would not be effective.
“There will be ‘inhibitors of change' that the leadership encounters. Those would be people who are in a sense ‘power brokers', insecure that the power equations might also change. One needs to deal with this,” added Mr Gupta.
He urged the HR practitioners and business leaders to share small milestones (successes) in the transformational journey with stakeholders, to get their buy in. According to him, the rewards and recognition system also has to change with changes in the organisation.
“The most critical aspect is that the company has to invest in processes and talent ahead of the growth curve (expected with the organisational changes). This is especially true for mature sectors – you cannot say that you will invest once the growth comes in,” surmised Mr Gupta.
‘It's not about the leaders'
Business leaders need to have the ability to make themselves subservient to the organisation, underlined Mr Prakash Iyer, MD, Kimberly-Clark Lever Pvt Ltd.
He said, “There is a need for leaders to understand the change from the perspective of employees and the organisation, rather than his or her own. Transformation is not about the leaders - it's about the organisation.”
“During transformation and change, very often what happens is that people look for that moment of glory (like consumers' moment of truth), that opportunity to be on TV,” added Mr Iyer.
According to him, another pitfall leaders should guard themselves against was relying on their ‘coterie' to get the pulse of the organisation, and acceptance or success of the transformation exercise. HR, he said, could become ‘a mirror that allows people to look at themselves within the organisation'.
‘Creative Tension'
Ms Dipti Sanzgiri, Executive Director – HR, Bharat Petroleum Corporation Ltd, noted that for change to be successful, it was important to have an enabling architecture in place for people to be supportive of the transformation.
She said, “The most important challenge is to create and sustain a ‘creative tension' born of shared aspiration and vision, and a shared understanding of the current reality that necessitates change.”
Empathy for people will help understand what drives them, noted Mr Navanit Narayan, Chief Service Delivery Officer, Idea Cellular Ltd. He urged leaders and HR practitioners to bear in mind that any transformation impacts people.
He said, “When undertaking such exercises, my understanding is that you should not involve everyone under the sun. Change has to be led by the top management, the senior leadership and may be one level below that. And the three things that matter are empathy, leadership and communication.”