Demons of Exclusive Preferences at Work

Despite goodwill, human intimacy cannot occur without substantial mutual harm. That’s what perhaps Richard McHugh SJ alluded to, when he said “True love is devastating”. That’s what I partly associate these days with the construct of intimate enemies. If you’ve not had a spark ignite between folk you stay with, do review your intensity in the relationships you have with others around you.

The physical confinement and constraints on socialisation has precipitated such tendencies. Known as the Hedgehog paradox, there are several contentious moments I have experienced in the recent weeks. Let me cite a couple as prelude to false dichotomies that have shored up on virtual media from apparently well-intentioned people.

When the recent strife in Israel and Palestine broke out, a friend in India took issue with me. She felt I was contributing to the tensions there by not raising the voice of dissent against the aggressor. I pleaded with her to examine how subtle and complex the situation on the ground there is far from the oversimplified inferences we make from afar, with no locus standii of pertinence there.

When Kerala’s new cabinet was sworn in a fierce activist labelled the composition as political misogynism. She took time to argue her point and enjoined many an activist to her cause online. She halted her arguments with me when I posted thus: Complex perceptual layers don't make the issue clear. People need to wade through ambiguity to assert androgynous equity.

A false dilemma occurs when a limited number of options are incorrectly presented as being mutually exclusive to one another or as being the only options that exist, in a situation where that isn't the case.

Let me list a few that professionals at work will likely encounter. They bear semblance to the genre of dichotomies in socio-political domains as the ones I cited above. It is in the nature of our socialization that errors of logic and generalization occur.

1.    Expertise and Amateurism: I read online from professional platforms veterans exhorting impressionable netizens to shun ‘experts’ to bring on innovation in their firms. Now, we are just fresh from the news and proven worth of vaccine candidates. Did the expert scientists not innovate or experiment enough? On the other hand I read “Huge crowds gather in Krishnapatnam village in Nellore district to get unapproved ayurvedic medicine for Covid”. The blatant aggression against science is to be seen as a stress on other forms of medicine and treatment. What’s the point of these examples?

Now, if you learned to swim, or drive a car, you have basic expertise in these skills. You were an amateur and even a novice once at these skills. You are hired for your expertise. You are rewarded for bringing novelty in spite of your expertise, or because of it. The reward is for your openness to new experiences and the persistence to see a chosen new path to its methodical completion. That’s over and above past learning. If there are professions where your past learning is disregarded or demonized, it is unlikely that innovations will sustain.

Yes, that’s more like it, demonizing expertise or amateurism is what’s fatal. We need both Expertise and Amateurism.

2.    Reflection and Action: Several organizations sport value and belief statements that read like ‘bias for action’. We know looking back, what such bias did to Real Value Appliances – the company that brought Case Fire the fire extinguisher brand. It got sucked into its vacuum of impertinent reflection when they brought on the Vaccumizer product. Recall what happened to Eastman Kodak when digital photography came on. Or Nokia, when Android and iOS came on. Reflective processes enable mechanisms like scenario planning at Shell. Living companies are ambidextrous.

The adrenalin to acquire repetitive rushes from action is one dynamic force. Without diving deep in reflective curiosity, actions can bleed away scarce resources.

True for organizations, groups and individuals in them.

3.    Reading and Writing: – Vikram Seth, Amitav Ghosh, Pranoy Roy, Ram Guha, Suman Dubey, Swaminathan Aiyar, Aroon Purie, Kanti Bajpai, BG Verghese are possibly names you can relate to. Did you know that they all went to the same school? In a small assignment I did for this institution, I sensed from close how passionately expressive students get in producing their school newsletter. They bring their expressions to writing, editing and of course reading.

“If there's a book that you want to read, but it hasn't been written yet, then you must write it.” Says writer Toni Morrison. So, how does that make for life in professions of industrial enterprise? Or the service firm? Subroto Bagchi, Dileep Ranjekar, Anurag Behar, Giridhar Subhra, Shankar Jagannathan and Ranjan Acharya are all names of writers too. They worked from the portals of the same firm at Wipro. Their leader Azim Premji was a reader. He would circulate copies of business review articles among senior leaders long before his firm even published their first set of Leader Qualities.

Stephen King, famous writer puts it this way “If you don't have time to read, you don't have the time (or the tools) to write. Simple as that.” With the advent of individualised coaching, some leaders have taken to writing to express their purpose and values. Others write their journals. So many in working roles take to blogging. Vivek Patwardhan takes expression further to the art of vlogging. In my book Being People, every leader I have profiled has been a prolific reader. While some a reluctant writers, others have written poetry. George Menezes, formerly of Hoechst HRD fame had the most personified email address [email protected]. His cousin Julio Ribeiro writes today, as youthfully in conscientious spirit as he served when in police uniform.

Akio Morita when at Sony said “I see what I know when I read what I write”. That’s a canonical introduction in journalism schools of standing today. If leaders don’t see their thoughts for themselves, they’d be at a disadvantage in communicating with their followers.

4.    Speaking and Listening: It is another matter that professionals work backward from other leaders’ behaviours to uncover principles and mechanisms that make for successes. When Robin Andrulevich set out to work her way to what is now known as Amazon’s famous 14 Leadership Principles, it took her 9 months of interviewing and study. In 2004, her HR head Mike George would have thought it would take her just 2 months to do so. Robin’s assiduousness at her task is surely an act of active listening interviewing leaders at Amazon, including those who worked directly with Jeff Bezos.

While the world knows that a 6 pager works as effective mechanism rather than the ubiquitous PowerPoint presentation, it implies two things. Firstly the writing would clarify the proposer’s idea. Rigorous fact-based thinking goes into the design of products and services. Secondly, it makes sure that the single-threaded leadership process around a central idea is potent with ownership for novelty. And the leader would have a listening audience. That’s because they would all have read the document before attending the meeting.

I hope this piece helps you visualize more than practical habits. Sustaining the self through the longer term is to set oneself up beyond employeeship. A career is not to be perched on a ladder of accountability or a map of scale per se. To be an ambidextrous thinker and doer is to set oneself up for life itself.

An advocate for AND thinking. And to develop one’s own internal compass. Begin with an area of expertise. It would give you confidence and an initial toehold to command respect. Then appreciate adjacent areas. Leverage them if you can and deepen your expertise in ways that an obscure art form like calligraphy can lift impact to fonts on digital screens.

So, what’s the dilemma or paradox that you will want to engage with for now? Would it devastate you to work on your non-preferred polarity?

Let us know when you write about it.