Wide Angle 41 - CWG, execution and cleanliness of Indians

Apologies for the break in writing. I know the third part of the write up on Great Depression is due. However, this particular thing has dominated the headlines so much that I am too tempted to add my two pence worth of thoughts on it. So breaking with the routine to write about the CWG mess, the Indian execution abilities and our general aversion to cleanliness. Once I am done with it, you will see what I see and that is all these are related to each other and have their origin in the way our society is and the mode of society/government we have followed since independence. Before we begin, this post is slightly radical and may offend you, if it does, good, it is meant to, to get a message across, sometimes shocking people works.
I am not in the least bit surprised by the CWG fiasco since we in Pune saw what happened on a smaller but rather accurate scale before the Commonwealth Youth Games. If the manager is same, you’d expect more or less the same results from the team right? I also believe that the foreign press jumped the gun, they should have waited for the last day to report – it would all have been cleared up by the last day – they were too impatient weren’t they?
Before I begin, please don’t conclude that I am one of those NRIs who think they are successful just because they have left India and thus seem to have “solutions” to all of India’s problems. On the contrary, I think of everything from the Indian perspective (since I plan to be back in some time), I feel proud that we have achieved some success in IT, auto manufacturing, space and some other stuff. I also believe that the demography is to our advantage for the next few decades as well – that is mightily under-recognized. I also believe that despite all its imperfections, our democracy and open society in the midst of so many problems is very encouraging. The only problem with India is its government – it does everything it is not supposed to do (for example running hotels and bread factories) and does not do pretty much anything it has to (example sanitation, providing security, making lives of people easier). Since we are improperly governed, we do not have rule of law as it should be and hence things are haywire the way they are. More on less government (which is my pet theme) later.
Back to today’s topic, the CWG is an example of how we are not at all good at execution. We are great with thoughts, excellent at planning and very insightful with our observations and comments. However, all that is left out at the door once you start execution. While we have been pretty good at execution in the private sector, I still feel we are not there. With such a big government presence in all aspects of life in India, we cannot expect the private sector to execute and improve everything. How does one define good execution? I simply define it as finishing something before time (at least 2 days in advance of the deadline), with good quality and within the cost defined at the start – cost, schedule, quality – the old chestnuts. Does anything in India that gets done (except for the Infosys “block” buildings) this way. No is the answer.
Before moving further, I would like to say that there have been instances where I have achieved good execution and sometimes bad and hence that gives me the authority of experience to talk about good execution. Execution is simply about getting things done. You need a plan, which most of us have. This part many get right but the plan is more often than not loosely defined and is not really a plan but a scheme of how to do things. Till here, the Indians are well ahead of anyone else since we create some excellent plans and great reports. So why does execution become such a problem? Very simply put, it is the lack of monitoring and re-planning and monitoring and re-planning again – essentially being on top of things.
Now since we often come close to good execution, someone at some level is being on top of things and working his butt off but it is obviously not the people at the top. My firm belief in these matters is that unless the leader (s) monitors all the time, things will not get pushed – like Lou Gerstner says “People don’t do what you expect, they do what you inspect”. The second very important thing that is missing in good execution is the unwillingness of leaders to get their hands dirty if need be. This is where the entire Wide Angle series more or less compresses it’s message and gives you – leaders cannot afford to live in ivory towers, cannot talk in the air and cannot simply expect that things will move along because they are in charge. Wherever that does not happen, things will go wrong.
I know I am talking tired old management clichés here so let me get right back to my analysis and my original thought. I think good execution fails in our country because “work” is looked on only as something that buys you basics (if you are at the bottom of the pyramid) and luxuries (as move you higher). Work has to be to achieve something, it has to be an end in itself. If work does not have an element of “I built that” or “I created that” element attached to it and if it does not have “pride” associated with it, it will not motivate, it will only impose. One has to gauge work, look for gaps, fix gaps, pitch in if no one else is doing it, use the stick, yell, grovel, call 10 times a day if the work is to be done well. The only person who can do this on the team is the leader because everyone else is supposed to execute and won’t have the time nor the inclination or the abilities to do this.
The reason why people don’t “work” enough in India and many other countries also is about the PDI (Power Distance Index) concept from Wide Angle 23. The boss is supposed to be in the cabin with a PA (remember the imagery from Hindi movies) and barking orders, he cannot be seen to be creating slides or code for example. To reach that cabin is what work is for according to us (a prime reason why kids in Infy want to do a MBA and get out of coding?). Essentially this is associated with dignity of labor which is absolutely not present in Indians. There are “good” jobs and “bad” jobs and if one is stuck in a bad job, one is either doomed for life (in which case one will not work and probably drink and curse) or else one will change the job. As long as this is the view, “work” will not get done the way it is supposed to be. And this is what the caste system is about isn’t it? People will be stuck in their jobs because they were born like that and there is no chance of moving ahead, without that why would anyone be motivated.
The caste system is an extreme form of such a society but I hope you get what I mean. If the feeling of “hierarchy” exists and if that is too rigid, the people below in the hierarchy have nothing to gain by working for the sake of an outcome and will only look at it as a money making device. To not have this feeling in the team, it is the boss who has to stoop and be seen to be shouldering an equal burden with the people, if this does not happen, no one will be interested in executing well, they will just wait for a final yelling and grumblingly work. Hasn’t this been seen everywhere and isn’t it the same in CWG?
One last thing, folks, when you get a project with a deadline, please finish the bulk of the work in the beginning so that you can sleep at the end. I have learnt a lot from my spouse here, whenever we have a project like moving home (which we have done 6-7 times since marriage now) or anything else, she makes lists of tasks, then she makes a smaller list the next day and so on. The list is revised, reviewed and re-done every day or sometimes hour. We completed a move from Swindon (when she was 6 months pregnant) to London (for me) and Baroda (for them) in 1 week and we were idle on the last day because we had used this approach of execution.
So what does this have to with cleanliness you ask me. The whole execution bit completely ties up with the visible lack of cleanliness so visible in the public domain in India. I had gone to China Town in Central London and was extremely surprised to find it spank clean, well laid out and without any chaos (as opposed to Eastham). That pretty much sums up the difference. We have unclean public domains, it is because the cleaners are doomed to these tasks which are deemed to be “dirty”. The so called “leaders” of society, government, business in India are mostly men who would not lift a finger at home. If one cannot do one’s own work, how will one know how to execute complicated projects, all one will know is to talk big. The reason why me and my brother have been relatively good at execution is because we grew up in Mumbai (which is the most egalitarian city in India) and considering that our mother used to be ill, many times we had to do many of the chores at home for example cleaning the basin, toilet, tidying the house, dusting the house, sometimes doing the dishes, unfolding the folding cot every night and folding it back along with the “gaadis”. That brought the “instinct” of work within us and that is what helps us.
Did you get it, if you want your children to grow up and work well, have them do manual work sometimes, make them in charge of projects and give them responsibility. Finally, expose them to physical hardships, only then will they understand the “value” of each job (including cleaning the toilet which I think is one of the most noble job to do). The simple thing about dirt is, it is just dirt and gets cleaned by the brush – most of the Indian gentry likes to avoid dirt. I feel good looking at a sparkly bathroom or cleaned utensils or clean floor – isn’t a completed project or proposal the same thing – equivalent to a clean bathroom/floor/clothes? If you get what I mean, I think you will realize the reason why executions are a problem in our country.
I know this is a very radical thought, had to be said though, if we have to move forward, this has to change else we will see stinky photos all the time that the foreigners will throw in our faces.