Backroom Heroes
Advait Kurlekar
Independent Director, Business Strategy, HR Consulting, CXO Coaching, Process Improvement, Start-up Mentor, Adjunct / Visiting Faculty, Workshop Facilitator
Few days ago I came across a video link on social media that gave very interesting information about what all goes in (rather behind the scenes) when a cricket match is telecast live, some 700-800 people working together as a team and how important the role of the Director and Vision Mixer is, and it ended with a stunning statement that commentators play a very small role in the whole process!
Now that got me thinking, because for all of us who are TV cricket lovers, the match telecast is all about the commentators! And here was one of them, candidly admitting that they are just a tiny part of the whole orchestra!
Every ‘event’ that gets organized – be it a wedding in the family, any awards function, team offsite, office picnic or the usual conference – there is always a bunch of people who slog it out to make that ‘event’ a success! More often than not, it’s the ‘front-end’ people that hog all the limelight (quite naturally), but to be fair, occasionally along with the bouquets they face the brickbats as well!
Even in organizations, the same social fabric continues, essentially what I call ‘business’, ‘business support’ and ‘support support’ functions. Typically, in every company the sales and service functions are clearly the ‘business’ – people who get the moolah for the company and hence they are in a make or break role for the entire company (the UI to give a software analogy). The middleware are people like purchase, materials, quality, stores, logistics, supply chain, etc. All other functions like HR, Finance, IT, Admin, Security, etc form the back end of any organization, truly supporting the other two roles. So far so good.
But when it comes to incentivizing teams for their performance, most organizations stop at the front-end functions only. Yes, they are the ONLY revenue generating functions in the entire company, so they need to be rewarded (and pampered, if you may). But can they do what they do all alone? Really? Can any front-end function work in isolation or insular to any other middleware or back-end function? So why do organizations routinely forget and ignore the important role of these functions? Like the Vision Mixer role in the example above? Why can’t the entire organization be rewarded for the overall performance and not just the front-end roles?
Time to change and make this pivot! Here’s to the backroom heroes!
Investor in EduGorrila, Intignus BioTech, Chair - Pune Angels, ML/AI GenAI based Enterprise Applications
1 天前IMHO, there should be only TWO roles in an organization 1. Who generates business? 2. Who delivers business? All roles should be aligned and rewarded on these, it creates razor sharp focus, clarity for entire organization. Develop KPI/KRA around this for every member in the team.
Director, The Startups Funding Practice (TSFP) | Director, Mudraa CellX | Director, Innovations & Emerging Tech. COE, PMA | Mentor, DST-TEC SPPU | Grants | Incubators & Accelerators | Startups Advisory | Angel Investment
2 天前Well said Advait Kurlekar. As always, you bring forth a great perspective.
Echo this perspective.
Vision: "MBDE", Make BHARAT a Developed Economy Motivational Speaker for Continual Growth at Workplace
2 天前Great perspective sir You have really presented in a style easy to understand
Agile & PMO Consultant
2 天前I wonder what would happen if organizations incentivized their backroom/ delivery teams as much as their executives and front-end sales teams. Would their be greater ownership, operational efficiency/ profitability along with faster time to market?