Touchpoint Marketing Chapter 2: Are Your Satisfied and Loyal Customers Committed Enough?

Are Your Satisfied and Loyal Customers Committed Enough?

This is the second part of a seven-part series on Touchpoint Marketing. Catch-up on the first part here

 

• How often have you come across a wonderful piece of direct mailer that makes you feel ‘The chosen one’?
• Yes, retailers keep blasting us with end-of-season, fresh-stocks, and clearance sale mailers on a perennial basis. But those are generic mailers. How often have we seen a customized mailer or offer from a retail chain?
• Our Banks and Insurance firms keep us occupied with higher interest rates mailers and ‘we care about you’ kind of mushy mailers. But how often have you witnessed a terrific pitch of up-sell or cross-sell from your bankers/insurers?
• Everyone has been doing database-based telemarketing since the birth of Christ, but how often have you come across a genuine case that talks just to you? A Marketer who actually knows your attitude, preferences, lifestyle and lifestage and has a terrific offer ‘Just for you’!
• My hatchback car company never reached out to me for a potential upgrade. I love their latest Sedan. Just a gentle nudge, some offer, some freebies…and I am sold on. But no one ever attempted this.
• My Insurance firm never tried a potential cross-sell for a kids plan despite being well aware of my lifestage.
• My online holiday provider was of good help during my last vacations. But they never reached out again with some exotic offers and locations for my next vacation.
• My executive education service provider takes web-based management lessons to the length and breadth of this country. However, closer home, its own team is struggling for simple customer service etiquettes.

Makes me wonder, where is all that Analytics going into? Is it sitting in water-tight silos? Does all the output from ivory tower data warehouses goes in creating only historical patterns, trends and dashboards? The predictability, the power to predict that we keep talking about, never reaches the on-the-field marketing teams?

In today’s age of ubiquitous feedback forms and KYCs, do companies actually KTCs i.e. Know Their Customers?

To improve sales, you don't necessarily need more customers. You need better customers.

A concept wonderfully explained in Jan Hofmeyr & Butch Rice’s seminal work in Commitment-led Marketing.

The customers that your data says are your most satisfied may be the most likely to leave tomorrow. So are you asking the right questions and measuring the right dimensions? Some customers appear to be loyal because they habitually buy a product, but this does not mean they are committed to it. They appear to be loyal because in all probability they don’t have many options. They may be the first to fly off your radar the moment another similar product arrives. More like commitment levels in many long-term marriages and relationships. Many times, loyalty could just be a virtue of lack of exciting options! 

Loyalty is what customers do. Commitment is what they feel! Customers can appear deceptively loyal but actually be uncommitted (they might only use the brand because everyone else does (Microsoft), through lack of choice, affordability, or distribution. Commitment-led Marketing is about creating a Conversion Model that allows companies to segment users by commitment to stay, and non-users by openness to adopt their brand. By applying this to their brand, and competitors, companies can identify the right strategy to defend share (if they are a large brand), or steal it (if small). It’s time companies and marketers start acting on the fact that customer satisfaction is a poor predictor of behavior – commitment is better. How many committed customers are being created and nurtured across their Touchpoints?

Many businesses believe mass advertising through email marketing, billboards, radio/TV, direct mail and other channels alone will drive sales. They couldn’t be more half-baked in their assumption.  ‘Above the Line’ Media simply creates awareness, interest levels, enquiries, walk-ins and at best, trial purchases. Beyond that, it’s your brand attributes and service features that take over.

Many businesses simply create the pre-requisite Facebook, LinkedIn & Twitter home pages and think they’ve cracked the Social Media Marketing (SMM) puzzle. Just beaming over the no. of likes and shares (most often by your own employees) can’t be the only defining metrics for SMM. It’s more about how your brand has adapted or presented itself in the social media context. How is your brand engaging (and not just informing and entertaining) with the online customer?

This shotgun outbound marketing approach (one to many) is very helpful in creating the ‘Brand Decibels’ – the awareness. It ensures is setting up potential customers’ first meeting with your brand. Beyond that it’ your ‘Touchpoints’ that need to make conversations, conversions, establish connect, build relationships, drive repeat purchase and most importantly enforce commitment. Touchpoint-based marketing is all about smart and focused client retention through effective inbound marketing. All the marketing media, with their distinct reach and impact, help building your brand saliency (awareness). But what actually builds a Brand is what happens when the customer ‘pull’ results in equally impactful customer service or product commitment.

To know more, continue reading the third part of this seven-part series here

Touchpoint Marketing Chapter 1: Do Companies Really Know You?

Do Companies Really Know You?

Starting today and through this week a seven-part series on Touchpoint Marketing. This is the first part of a seven-part series.

Organizations evolve. Steadily over a period of time. And as it goes in Organization Theory, they start getting more institutionalized through structures, levels, hierarchies, culture, values, policies and processes. Most of these aren’t really ‘etched in stone’ fundamentals that organizations begin with. But most of these keep getting formalized as organizations acquire client base, gather some momentum, expand their tentacles, carve their distinct identities, positioning, the mindspace amidst their customers. Both existing and potential.

The entire idea of Organization theory is a beautiful concept that allows companies to be much more efficient and effective in their chosen goal of serving their customers. Structures that allow the companies to get closer to their customers and serve them better.

Now, look around and try to think of all the companies you’ve ever dealt with. Right from your mobile service provider to banks to retailers. Right from big-ticket items like cars, consumer durables and holiday packages to everyday FMCG goods. How often have you been (allow me the cliché) ‘delighted’ as a customer? You think ‘delighted’ is too passé a word. Well there are a multitude of others doing the rounds – customer ecstasy, the ‘Wow’, the ‘Aha!’….an entire battery of such customer-isms depicting your satisfaction levels.

Moving beyond the world of Organization theory, let’s talk about the more glam sounding concepts of Research and Analytics. Insights, Marketing effectiveness, Marketing ROI, data, Big data, Predictability, Certainty, Measurements, CRM, Dashboards, Customer Scorecards, Business Intelligence, Measuring the intangibles, Smart Analytics. Phew!

Analytics (and its various avatars) are the biggest thing to have happened to Management since Lean and Six Sigma. It’s in, it’s cool, it’s intelligent and more of an imperative for your corporate existence to be talking about it. To discuss the magic of Analytics and how it has the potential to ‘Unravel’ (pardon the cliché once again) layers of customer insights, never known before! 

Companies are processing data, Big data by terabytes. You habits, spending patterns, ‘likes’ (it’s no longer a cute word preceding love. It means big business in today’s overtly ‘social’ times), your lifestyle is under constant surveillance. You are under constant, microscopic observations. As a customer, every day, every moment you are being studied, processed, segmented, clustered, regressed and character-sketched. You, the customer, are the subject, with multitude of subject matter experts knowing more about you than your father-in-law!

Wonderful times to live in, right? With so much customer-centric, infact customer-obsessed practices, you the customer, must be amidst the best of times, right? Yes? No!

Once again, think about all the Brands that are serving you right now. How many of these, do you think have really ‘delighted’ you off late?

My existing Bank sold me a Demat brokerage plan and I have since then been running from pillar to post to get it resolved. My multiple well-wishers in this bank right from Equity advisor, Relationship manager, Customer care Execs, Helpdesks, Head Service Quality, etc. have all suddenly vanished in thin air. What a wonderful Organization structure to be swimming in? Amidst all these glorified roles, everybody knows everything about everything. But no single body, knows that one single thing that it takes to (forget delight) Retain an irate customer.

The point being, amidst all this customer relationship and analytics jargon, how many companies are actually reaching out to their Existing customers? Note the word ‘Existing’. We’re not even including ‘potential’ customers in this debate.  Somewhere in our B-schools, we were entrenched with this wonderful insight –

‘It costs ten times to get a new customer as it takes to retain an existing customer.’

Now with companies going out all guns blazing to acquire newer customers, expand footprints, grab footfalls, eyeballs and all the works, is anyone even looking at this huge set of existing customers? 

“Yes, ofcourse” will be an emphatic response from the marketing and technology heads of most firms. “Why else do you think we’ve invested millions in super data-crunching machines and Apps?” We are generating existing customer spend and lifestyle patterns by the minute.

Fair enough. And that precisely, brings us back to the discussion. Think again. How often have we have seen the magic of all this Analytics actually ‘Touching’ us? In today’s age of multiple Touchpoints, are brands and companies actually ‘Touching’ us at all?

To know more, continue reading the second part of this seven-part series here

The Paradox of Studious Professionals

The Paradox of Studious Professionals

Throughout our student life, we wanna grow up, step out, try to be creative, imaginative, do our own thing, don’t want to blindly follow instructions or simply cram the books. In a nutshell, we are so damn eager to be Professionals!!

Cut to our Professional avatars. We will strictly follow our set KRAs, walk with blinkers, never attempt what we were never asked to, never question set processes, rarely look beyond our silos. Our student-mind, so restless to get out of the box, suddenly goes blank and numb the moment we turn professionals. Professionals happy to stay cocooned within our comfortable boxes (also called as Job Profiles).

As students we hated the concept of 'ratta maar' education?. However, the same ourselves are now seeking some divine help (in the form of sample papers and paper patterns) in our professional roles. We hated our teachers for favouring the by-hearters, the quintessential good boys & girls, the front-benchers who won’t know an iota beyond the books. We titled these single-trick ponies as Bookworms, immersed in their books, oblivious to the world around. However, the same inquisitive and brimming with ideas ourselves now hate our bosses for not providing clear instructions. Not being specific in exactly laying down the expectations from us – A, B, C, D…

It’s much akin to the children versus grown-up syndrome. As children, we try too hard to look, behave and project ourselves as mature grown-ups. And by the time we actually grow-up, the reverse process has already started. We try too hard to look, behave and feel younger, cuter and not necessarily smarter. No wonder the repeated reassurance through “I am still a child at heart!”

Corporates have long been emphasizing and underlining this aspect of there being no correlation between Education and Employability. The seemingly sharpest of Engineers are happy doing some of the most redundant jobs. They were refrained from asking too many questions as students. And now, they are too conditioned to not ask questions in their existing job profiles.  Some of the sharpest Engineers from some of the sharpest institutes, but never sharpened to be imaginative. Never engineered to be enterprising. Look around and it’s not a case of over-qualified professionals stuck in monotonous jobs. It’s more a case of under-inquisitive professionals very rightly mapped to the jobs they are possibly the best at – clear, unambiguous, process-driven. ‘Ratta maar’ jobs!

Growing up in value-chain can never be achieved by being served highly intellectual projects on a platter. As it goes in the Bournrville advertisement, “You do not buy a Bournville, you earn it!”

An exciting job profile is necessarily an acknowledgment and award of some exciting ideas. You don’t graduate to intellectually-stimulating projects by demanding for it. You exhibit Intellectually-stimulating ideas and thoughts and then graduate to such projects. Your clients and stakeholders will never ask you to do rocket science, till the time you don’t educate them about the impact of rocket science and infuse (their) confidence in your capabilities to do so! But how will you exhibit such rocket science traits amidst your existing ‘A, B, C, D…’ job profile? Now that’s a classic Catch 22 and that’s something that you’ll have to imaginatively figure it out for yourself.

It’s odd to be quoting a cliché in this piece on imaginative thinking. But perhaps some clichés are unavoidable and necessary to drive home a point - “Ask not what your job has done for you, rather challenge what you have done for your job”.

Look around for all those goody-two shoes toppers and front-benchers in your school and college. Are they necessarily at the top of their game? Are they the front-runners in their professional avatars as well? Ummmm….not exactly, right?

During an interview for the position of head of an analytic team, I questioned a potential candidate on a simple aptitude problem. A problem that involved calculating the area of a circle. He fumbled and had retorted “But how is that important to my role? And as it is, it was too far back in school. Can’t exactly recollect the formula.” Can’t recollect the area of circle formula? You were the Math topper mate! “But we do have Google and all the advanced tools and techniques for formulae.” 

Another potential candidate, who had been at a very senior position in a reputed consulting firm, was asked to run me through his most acclaimed project. Some project where advanced analytics was put to best use with some very insightful and actionable results.  I requested, “Walk me through your statistical/analytical approach to the problem”. He was deadpan in his response “But, I had teams doing it!!”

Yes Google will answer everything and there will be teams doing the groundwork. But as leaders if you don’t know the basics of flying, why would I hand you a pilot’s license? Won’t it be a recipe for disaster? Yes, leaders are meant to provide directions, navigate teams and clients, steer thought processes. But it would be dangerous to be led by an explorer captain and hope to discover America. As they say, Hope can’t be a strategy.

Yes, the area of circle formula was way back in your school. You crammed it up then, topped the grades and then started focusing on the new syllabus and paper patterns.

There is a wonderful book from Marshall Goldsmith, ‘What Got You Here Won't Get You There’. It argues that at the top level, the problems are behavioural, not skill-related. You may have been a meticulous and diligent student throughout. Crammed through your books and sailed across top schools and top colleges with top grades and have now landed a top job. However, what got you here won’t get you there! Welcome to the corporate world, the real world. From here, life won’t be an instruction manual. It’s time you finally apply what you’ve learnt and be your own guiding star.

The true sign of Intelligence is not Knowledge but Imagination. Logic will get you from A to B. Imagination will take you everywhere. - Albert Einstein

But unfortunately, Imagination, Lateral Thinking and Creativity were never full-fledged courses in our education system. Coming back to the crammers from your schools and colleges. Yes, so have they made it large? Have they arrived and are thriving in their professional roles?  Some of them, definitely Yes! Some who had the foresight to adapt to the new rules of the game. They have leveraged their cram-abilities to land up at the right place at the right time. And are now doing the right things, by being rightfully self-driven and imaginative.

Ofcourse, there are many others from those batch of crammers, who are still struggling to make a mark. Perhaps, they are still looking for sample question papers and paper patterns to decode the corporate jigsaw. Perhaps they were never forewarned in their schools, that a major part of what happens in life will be ‘Out of Syllabus’!

This Barfi! is colder than stone-cold Barf!

This Barfi! is colder than stone-cold Barf!

It’s a cold Turkey! Whatever it was a chaplinesque comedy? Poetic romance? Love between physically disabled couple? Or as itself declared in the movie “ek bakwaas jasoosi novel!” Doesn’t Move, doesn’t Engage, doesn’t Entertain! Frankly it does nothing in its never-ending running time.

Why do they make such films? Who story-boards them? Who and why mounts them, sanction them? Why do production houses back it? Why do actors get super-excited about these futile exercises to exhibit their acting skills?

It’s a woeful waste of great resources – the cast and crew included- in such self-indulgent exercises. Just pencilling in a couple of physically disabled characters doesn’t really qualify for great cinema. Barfi! for most part of it comes across as a contrived and manipulative effort, trying too hard to be too cute.

Dear Ranbir Kapoor, we have seen enough of your range as a powerhouse performer. Wake Up Sid, Rajneeti, Rocket Singh, Rockstar, Barfi!...phew! Yes, my friend, you are an actor par excellence, the new kid on the block, the most promising newcomer…and all that jazz! But it’s time we move beyond this audition show-reel of yours and get into some real movies. It’s time you emerge from the ‘most-promising’ category and actually deliver on those promises. Some real seeti-maar and in your Rockstar-lingo, some real palang-tod entertainment! The larger than life Khan-Akki-Devgn stuff. Or if that’s too much to ask for, atleast some frothy breezy romance of the Saif variety.

Ok, fair enough. Even if we take off the entertainment bit and start looking at Barfi! as an artisitic-beautiful work, it doesn’t really cut much ice (much Barf in this case). The direction is too flawed, and fails miserably in trying to be too intellectual, too layered. The director Anurag Basu continues to suffer from the ‘Kites’ hangover and assumes a back-and-forth narrative to be a great technique for great movies. It didn’t work for Kites. And it most definitely won’t for Barfi! either.

The thriller bit doesn’t work. The physical disability of the lead couple appears to be too force-fitted. And finally, the end-product is a confused exercise that seems to be based out of a neverland.  It goes from nowhere to nowhere. All the characters and situations come across as cardboard cut-outs, caricaturish. As if everyone out there was trying to impress (look I can act, look I can direct) rather than express.

Sorry, I can’t be a pseudo-intellectual and praise this so-called masterpiece, when I was dozing off throughout this yawn-inducing Barfi! Three thumbs down for this torture – for the movie, for the director and for myself for listening to fake glowing reviews!

The only redeeming feature – a superb ‘Picchar shuru!’ song at the start of the movie.

Bikes, Babes and Beats – That’s Dhoom for you!

This date, that year. Flashback to 27^th August, 2004.

A pepper-mint fresh movie, with a boisterous music score and not really crème-de-la-crème stars opened in India. Simply and aptly titled Dhoom. Coming from the Yashraj stable – the house of big blockbusters – this was an experiment. A quickie-breezy ‘boys’ film with no epic love story at its core. Backed by a peppy soundtrack, the movie opened well. And then the content took over and the movie ended being a major money-spinner!

 

So much, so that today, 8 years down the line, the zingy-zangy Dhoom Machale still evokes excitement. It was amongst the first movie (in Indian cinema) to have a successful sequel. Its third instalment with Aamir Khan as the antagonist has been amongst the most eagerly awaited movie for the past few years (don’t believe? check YouTube for a plethora of fake promos).

Today, 8 years since Dhoom, it’s kind of interesting to revisit this adrenaline-pumping flick. Those were still the early days of multiplexes. There was more to movies than just opening weekends, carpet bombing, deafening promotions and huge stars. Movies, still ran more on content and overall public acceptance, than just hammer-down marketing, sky-high ticket prices or brain-drain comedy. In those times of 3-hour sagas, the super-taut Dhoom wrapped up in 123 minutes flat and left the gasping audience wanting for more! Dhoom was a trend-setter and game-changer in more ways than one. It took the nation by storm and continues to be the most-prized franchisee.

Hence today, on its 8^th anniversary, it’s exciting to revisit the racy adventure that started with the original Dhoom! Here’s re-publishing one of my first movie reviews to celebrate the cult of Dhoom.

Bikes, Babes and Beats – That’s Dhoom for you!

There are a whole lot of movies being churned nowadays that are hardly doing any justice to the reputation of their banners, starcast or directors (Lakshya, Dev, Deewar, Kyun! Ho Gaya Na)….

A few that manage to live up to the expectations (K3G, Main Hoon Na!, Kal Ho Na Ho)

A miniscule few do manage to rise much beyond the expectations (Mujhse Shaadi karogi, Koi Mil Gaya)

And then once in blue moon does comes a movie that not just rises but…….but….simply….EXPLODES!!!!!!! In marketing terms it’s not just about customer satisfaction; it’s also not just about customer delight…….its about customer ECSTACY!!!!!!! 

Any guesses???? Yeah, ye got that right…….its DHOOM time guyz!!!!!! And you better check this one out…..Dhoom Rockkks! 

The beginning and the end numbers itself are a Paisa Vasool in themselves. One of the most stylized movies made in recent times. The excellently choreographed dance sequences, the crisp and taut editing and the split-screen visuals. The USP – Fantabulous bike chasing sequences (Check out for the Abhi-Uday chor bazaar escape, The Uday-John bike racing stuff), the background score, the zingy-zappy sound effects…….Zoooooom!!! 

Dhoom starts off right from the first frame…a lazy Abhi getting seduced by a HOT Rimi…..(It’s the stuff fantasies are made up of!)….and what follows over the next 145 minutes is pure magic. The action never stops, the mood continues to build…and never during the movie do you experience a dull moment…. 

Of the cast:

·         Rimi is a revelation, baby where have you been??? (Methinks you are definitely much more talented than a certain Ms./ Mrs. Sherawat!)

·         Esha….Well try and try till you succeed… there are some who are born with the oomph, and some who keep trying, harder and harder….and harder!!!

·         Great job Uday!!!!! Here’s an earnest actor who certainly has a flair for comedy….a pucca tapori……a perfect foil to a cool n sophisticated Mr. Bachchan!!

·         Bachchan……..ah! Here he comes…..Finally!!!!! Myself, One of the greatest critics of Mr. Abhishek Bachchan…..but sorry you’ve proved me dead wrong. Loc, Yuva and now Dhoom!!! The man has found a rhythm and looks all set for a long innings…. A role which seems tailor-made for him, Abhi is simply Fantastic!!! The cool exchanges with John running right throughout the movie gives the screenplay that extra edge.

·         And finally here comes John…..the man, the looks, the tresses, the physique, the bikes, the aura…. a star is born!!!!! Walking away with one of the most interesting characters in the movie, John personifies the essence of Dhoom. Just check out that wicked smile of his…and you know that there is much more to this guy than Jism.  

 

Dhoom is definitely one of the best movies screened this year. It’s the sheer energy and vibrancy displayed by the entire cast that takes Dhoom many levels above the ordinary….somewhere straight in the orbit!!!! 

This is Himanshu Manroa reporting from Chanakya Cinema, New Delhi. Dhoom looks all set to create a roaring spell on the Delhites…..Hope same’s the effect in Bombay too… 

Just check out the sensuous number by Tata Young as the credit titles roll by at the end…..She gyrates, she sizzles….as no one in the hall dares to move out…..the film has ended. The sexy Dhoom Machale has stopped blaring from the speakers. But the audience still sits there gasping, asking for more.

Very few movies can cast such an effect.

Very few movies can rise above the expectations…..

Very few movies can be labeled as Cult.

Dhoom manages much more than that!!!

As Dhoom Machale track still lingers on in my mind, there is just one word that can sum up the whole experience of Dhoom -

 SPELLBOUND!!

            Go watch it……..Now!!!!!! 

The super-successful Dhoom was followed up 3 years later in November 2006 by a much bigger money-spinner Dhoom 2. The stellar cast of Dhoom 2 ensured a record-breaking opening and was amongst the first successful sequel in the Indian cinema. Click here to know more about Dhoom 2, the second instalment of this blockbuster franchise.

 

Making Conflicts@work, Work!

Making Conflicts@work, Work!

An L&D leader at workplace once asked about various ‘real issues’ that instigate or cause conflicts. This was to add a more practical and real-flavor to an impending ‘Conflict Management’ workshop that he was planning to conduct.

As I sat down to pen my thoughts, I scanned through all the prior experiences where I was either directly involved or witness to conflicts. Conflicts both of the simmering, brewing types and of the warfront types. Conflicts both of the ‘natural and obvious’ category and those that were implanted for vicious reasons.  

 

Conflicts. What made them happen? Could they have been avoided? Some conflicts that left us wounded and bruised. Or was I actually glad about some other conflicts (that they happened)? Conflicts were we fought, debated, deliberated and disagreed but ended up wiser.  

Allow me to walk you through some common conflicts in most dynamic organizations. Definitely not an exhaustive list for sure. However, definitely a list for us to brood over, introspect and be aware about. You never know, one of these conflicts could be lurking round a corner. One of these might actually be operating at a ‘latent’ level around you.

Projects

·         The conflict between a manager and his team, when the manager insists on delivering the project on a particular date, and the team believes that it’s too tight a deadline.

·         It could also be about the scope of a project. The manager feels that the team should definitely work on information areas A, B and also C and D (to delight the client). The team however disagrees and believes that it’s an overkill. “When all that the client wants is information area A and B, why are we even bothered about looking at C and D?”

 

Indiscipline: 

·         Indiscipline happens to be the most common cause of conflict on the floors. A star performer thinks that till the time he is meeting and exceeding his targets, he can get away with anything. He may often feel that being on the calls (on the floor) shouldn’t be a big deal, stepping out for a couple of hours should be fine, tailgating is over-rated, etc. “Am I not meeting my targets? So why all this fuss?” 

Competition/Rivalry:

·         Promotions, shifts/transfers to a different team, secondment or even the possibility of getting preferential shift timings or PLs are common causes of intra-team rivalry.

 

Objectives/ Appraisals:

·         Conflict between manager and Direct report on assessment against objectives and more commonly against readiness for promotion.

·         Conflict within a manger when he or she is expected to implement decisions, policies and procedures that he or she hasn’t bought into.

·         And perhaps a corollary of the above point i.e. Conflict within a manager who feels he isn’t allowed enough leeway to implement things he is very passionate about.

 

Personality Types:

·         An introvert team member may feel that he is constantly getting sidelined by an aggressive and outspoken colleague – in terms of stakeholder visibility, access to more high-level projects or even better ratings.

·         Aggressive, highly directive managers/leaders bring about an air of autocracy. They want everyone to follow their instructions to the T. They would want their teams to be exactly like them – in thought, in intelligence, in beliefs, in creativity, in action.  They aren’t open to suggestions or an alternative approach (unless it is directed and enforced by the client himself). They end up creating an environment of suffocation and resentment. A breeding ground for conflicts.

·         A weak leadership that leaves too many gaps and holes, doesn’t lays down precise vision, mission, milestones and success criteria is another sign of emerging conflicts. The team isn’t well informed and there is a general lack of transparency. It could be both on a project/client front and also about internal organizational developments. This could pave way for assumptions, ambiguities, grapevine and eventually a state of chaos with too many erratic, contradictory decisions leading to conflicts.

·         Our often subconscious beliefs in stereotypes are another major factor. Stereotyping people based on their race, religion, nationality, gender or at times even cities (the most popular one being the perennial Delhi-Mumbai debate) can often lead to major conflicts.

·         On a similar line, being insensitive about issues like religion, politics, prior work experience, age, marital status and physical appearance is the most needless way of getting into conflicts. What’s humor to one may not be appreciated by others. The best approach, ofcourse is to be straight and empathetic, and avoid any kind of dry, dark or below-the-belt humor.  

Lack of clarity/communication about the precise goals:

·         An example of inter-team conflict could be the one between Operations and HR. The Ops may continue to feel that the recruitment team is not as passionate or quality-conscious (in their screening) and keeps sending them bad candidates. On the other hand, the HR could strongly feel that the Ops are being too ‘closed-out’ in not offering them enough rationale for rejecting good candidates. They may even feel that the JDs are too vaguely structured, too unrealistic or the process tests are too stringent.

·         Another most common grudge is the lack of passion, urgency, commitment, response and action accorded to most support processes like IT, Finance, HR and Admin. It once again boils down to empathy, communication and setting processes and best practices. What’s priority to an Ops team may infact be just perceived as a BAU by the IT.  And if everything is escalated as a priority, how is IT expected to rank relative priorities?  

Escalations:

·         Most conflicts may remain subtle, on a slow-flame for long periods. However, Escalations have a tendency to fuel-up most of these conflicts. The blame-game brings out the minutest of conflicts between the client and the delivery teams. Scoping, resourcing, assumptions, transitions - all aspects come to the fore. Within the delivery, it’s then a fight amidst the transition team, the project manager, the resources, the quality assurance and at times, even the vendors.  

As indicated earlier, this is just a laundry list of possible conflicts brewing around us. Run through the list once again. It’s ironical that most of the frameworks that were introduced to increase employee engagement are the most common causes of conflicts – SMART objectives, appraisals, feedback, rewards & recognitions, promotions, hikes. Perhaps that’s human behavior at its truest. People don’t really like the idea of being filtered, screened, and segregated or being pitched against each other. Even the most rationale folks find it difficult to accept the most logical defeats.

Despite our gradual evolution and acceptance of the Darwin’s principle of ‘Survival of the fittest’, it’s difficult to accept, when it works against us. But then, we don’t we see the athletes in a race track coming to blows after a race? The losers simply step aside and let the winners bask in glory. Why then in the corporate world, isn’t this Darwin principle taken as it comes?

Simple – because the athletes know their goal post and have no one else to blame. Things aren’t as clear and Black & White in the corporate. The people in the corporate world would be much more receptive, if they were conveyed their shortcomings in as many words. If their goals were set as objectively as possible. If they were constantly shown their progress dashboard rather than an end of the year report card. If they were coached and asked to buck up, rather than be coldly informed about their pace at the end of the race. In our quest to be good, nice, humane and popular – most managers shy away from conveying the tough message. And that, I believe is the single largest reason for ongoing conflicts in organizations. Not the presence of competitive performance and progress evaluation mechanisms, but rather our inability to use them effectively as enablers rather than water-tight structures.

A Conflict, just like some other complex words like Competition, Bureaucracy and Reservation, is often associated with negativity.  But think again, and most of these concepts, are the cornerstone of a fair, equal and efficient society. The now despised Bureaucracy is the foundation stone for the now progressive sounding Meritocracy. Wasn’t Reservation all about ‘Equal Opportunity’ at its outset? A society, organization or ecosystem sans any conflict, competition, bureaucracy or reservation is nothing more than a stagnant pond. Dead wood!

Most of these concepts, shouldn’t be killed or uprooted, but rather be nurtured carefully. Conflicts need to be approached based on the importance of issue & relationship at stake and resolved (or nurtured) accordingly. Rather than shun Conflicts, let’s take them head-on. Let’s pre-empt them, encourage them and create a fearless culture of creative conflicts. A culture with no dummies, sycophants and yes-men. But rather an innovative culture that breeds conflicts. Where everyone has a unifying goal, but do not think alike! 

 

 

As it goes in a popular commercial, just like ‘Daag’, Conflicts Achche hain!