How NOT to Kill Institutions

M. Dinesh Kumar, Mahendra Singh Verma and MVK Sivamohan

“Something is rotten in the state of Denmark”

                                                                                         Hamlet, by William Shakespeare

Worldwide, there is no dearth of literature on institution building. They cover micro level and higher order institutions, and concern the analytical and design framework for institutions, institutional design principles, and the key ingredients that have to go into the institution building process. Before we begin delving on the central theme of this note, we must admit that we are no scholars on institution building, nor do we have any vast experience in building institutions. The little we know, as the title of this note suggests, is from our experience seeing the rise and fall of many institutions.

In the early days after India’s Independence, Late Dr Homi Jahangir Baba (father of Atomic Research in India) was said to have built science institutions under the principle of “growing science”. From around the World, we can see many examples of private and public institutions built on these design framework and principles by great institution builders, and which received the right kind of ingredients in the formative years. One legendary name which comes to our mind is Late Dr Vikram A. Sarabhai, the world-renowned space scientist, who built many world-class institutions in Ahmedabad and elsewhere in the country.

While many know him as a pioneer in space science in India, what is less known is his contributions in other fields, particularly education and research--of fostering institutions. The list of exemplary institutions he built is long, and we know of people who have done their Ph. D on Dr Sarabhai’s remarkable contributions in institution building. Another name we remember is Late Dr Varghese Kurien, the Father of White Revolution in India. Dr Kurien built several premier institutions to meet global standard, most of which are located in the small town named, Anand in Gujarat, which used to be his Karma Bhoomi (place of work) for nearly six decades, gelling closely with the grass roots.

Today, we find neither great institution builders, nor great visionaries. Many old institutions built by great men and women of the bygone era face human resource crisis at the top due to lack of leadership or direction. Many institutions today are headless. Some institutions face existential crisis--not knowing what they should do in the fast-changing socio-political and economic environment. Many are experiencing institutional erosion due to decline of moral and ethical values. Over and above these, there are also problems that are quite unique to mammoth institutions with regional offices and branches, which need careful and close attention.

People of Integrity vs Street-Smart People: Some regional bosses are street smart and show quick results and impacts, unlike some others who take their own time to define goals, set targets, build teams, achieve results and create impacts without flouting rules and norms of ethical conduct. The dynamics of management style varies widely in different institutions. The former category of bosses has the tendency to drive the institution in a certain direction by convincing the top management that what strategies other groups or offices follow are obsolete. While there might be many genuine, hard-working people who achieve targets and with consistency and who need to be duly rewarded, the institution must keep an eye on such offices which are found to outperform their peers with much less effort. This is especially the case with public institutions that are supported by governments using tax payers’ money. It is quite possible that a group within the organisation is engaged in fraudulent activities to show quick results--for instance, clamouring for media coverage and buying news reporters. 

Local Autonomy vs Absolute Freedom: The regional offices of institutions would need some degree of autonomy to decide on their key areas of work, based on a proper assessment of what is most relevant for the region that the institution wants to cater to. Reasonable degrees of deviation from the mainstream activities shall be encouraged for fostering creativity and innovation, especially in research and development fields. But absolute freedom to come up with a new mandate and powers to ‘hire and fire’ people will only create despots and might invite big trouble for the institution over time. “Power tends to corrupt; absolute power corrupts absolutely”. In the process, the institution might entirely lose its character and the qualities and values which it upholds. A good leader would not like to have absolute freedom. In fact, a good supervisor is one who will not hesitate to tell his/her immediate subordinates, whom the latter can complain to in case of a perceived act of misconduct or victimisation by their boss and what procedures and mechanisms are in place for redress!

Self-Promotion vs Promoting the Institution’s Mandate: The institutions, which want to set up offices in different regions with regional heads, need to exercise caution while hiring to make sure that only the work that fits into their overall mandate and which serves their goal is promoted by these regional bosses. Remember: mediocre people will cut the institutions to fit into their size! Therefore these institutions should think many times before hiring people from places where they want to locate their offices, for key positions. The reason is such people might quickly develop strong vested interests (by tying up with people in their friends’ circle and relatives) and will have least interest in moving out of the area, even if the institution finds it unviable to continue in that environment due to unfavourable working conditions (for example, not being able to find competent people from the local job market to work). These officials might even use dangerous tactics including blackmailing the management in the evening of the latter deciding to close down operations. They would even hijack the institution’s mandate and labour hard to show that only their pet projects are relevant for the institution and the rest do not have any practical relevance. Such people are ‘self-serving’ and cannot serve the interest of the organisation they work for.

Creating Different Classes of Employees: When organisations frame policies, they are for all the employees and not for a select few. It is increasingly becoming common in large institutions that differential policies are followed in different regional offices and for different people, citing reasons of irrationality, impracticality, etc. Often the shocking reality of these differential policies and treatments do not come to the fore so easily, unless the senior management starts doubting the very intentions of the regional bosses. One such policy is to hire employees on short-term contracts with no benefits extended to them, when the organisation normally hire people as regular employees or make tenure-based appointments with several benefits extended to them. These contract employees are often voiceless, and just don’t even discuss about such differential treatments due to the fear of losing the job. Such problems, if continued for prolonged time periods, can lead to employee frustration and losing self-esteem. Such retrograde policies are generally used by people who are highly insecure in their profession. However, in certain cases, this can also be because of poor understanding of how incentives work for employees to perform. There are cases where the employees come to know of such differential treatment after spending several years in the organisation, because of lack of channels of communication with the head-quarters.

Physical Distance vs Psychological Distance: It is somewhat bizarre to note that this ‘lack of communication channels’ is a worrisome phenomenon even in this age of information superhighways. This prevents people from complaining about the injustice meted out to them by their regional bosses or unfair practices followed in the organisation. More than the physical distance, it is the psychological distance which matters. One major reason is that the people from head quarters do not visit these offices frequently, and even when they visit, they would spend quality time only with the regional heads, and not with the lower level staff. It might be worthwhile for the Head of HR of the institution to have closed door meeting with the regional staff in the absence of the regional heads. It is not that all that is reported by the regional staff should be taken seriously to initiate action against anyone. But in case of complaints about victimisation or harassment, it might be worthwhile to talk to people other than the plaintiff to verify the allegations, and the confidentiality of the same needs to be strictly maintained. It is unfortunate that these days, rules pertaining to harassment in work places, etc are heavily being misused by people with malicious intentions. Often, subordinate employees are persuaded to lodge complaints of harassment against their immediate supervisors who are considered as trouble makers because the latter raise voice of dissent against certain unfair practices or hold independent views on certain issues, refusing to toe the official line.  

Inbreeding vs Maintaining the True Character: it is important that the basic character of the institution is maintained, no matter where it is located. In an institution which is engaged in applied research on water, it is important that the research team has people from several important disciplines (water engineering, hydrology, geo-hydrology, sociology, political science and economics) and not just one discipline which the boss likes or belongs to. A rural management institute should also have people having basic background in natural sciences (livestock sciences, forestry, land management, horticulture, irrigation management and so on) along with people from pure management discipline (financial management, marketing management, human resources management, economics and finance and organizational behaviour). Otherwise, they will no way be different from other business schools which produce graduates for McKinsey & Company and Arthur Anderson or Price Water-house Coopers. It is also a general tendency among the newly appointed local Chief Operating Officer of reputed institutions to hire people from the local Universities or the place (or firm) where they originally hail from. They simply want to be in a comfort zone, and do not want to be challenged by people who bring in new perspectives. While in the short run such a strategy can yield quick results, as time passes the same can destroy the very character of the institution and the outfit will soon turn into an extended arm of the parent institution in terms of values and quality of services and degenerate. Many organisations, which once used to bask in glory of success, have failed to attract brilliant professionals. One reason is that the mediocre people from within these institutions do everything possible to prevent true professionals from joining the institutions.

Pathological Hatred Towards Certain Disciplines: It is horrifying to note that even in environments where people from several disciplines are expected to work in teams or independently to achieve the common goals, some senior officers who are otherwise expected to nurture their colleagues, maintain hatred towards people from certain disciplines and openly support and instigate people belonging to their discipline to belittle their work. They do not mind indulging in such practices even while knowing quite well that they would not be in the interest of the organization. This is known by the term called “mobbing”. Such problems are often detected very late, and that too after the victims of such ill-treatment quit the organization. Such tactics are often resorted to as an act of suppressing the counter opinion, especially when the perpetrators of these acts develop severe inferiority complex about the ideas and skills they possess.

Doing the Right Thing vs Doing Things the Right Way: There is no dearth of trained managers in development sector today. Hundreds of thousands of management graduates come out of academic institutions in India every year. They are up for a grab. But what is rare to find is good leaders and development catalysts. A manager does things the right way, whereas the leaders do right things. It is up to us to decide whom we should select to hold the mantle of an institution for it to remain vibrant. We need great leaders who can also manage organisations. Many a time, institutions run after people who can ‘manage’ funds (for paying salaries) and people; but not those who can make great contribution (be it in leading world class research or coming up with a great scientific innovation or designing and executing a great developmental project or building great academic/training institutions). In these people-centric institutions growth is dependent on its people, and the leadership. The problem is that the Board of Governance or the Management Board does not want to be bothered about the day-to- day hassle of finding resources for running the institution. But what is ignored is that money will not be a problem for institutions which excel in their fields and only great leaders can achieve excellence. People of great calibre make great institutions.

Publicity Stunt vs Creating Long-term Sustainable Impact: these days, competition is fierce in almost every field and it has become quite common even among people who occupy prestigious positions to engage in publicity stunt, to get a bounty from the government and private donors. Such publicity overtures can include: doing a path-breaking research which has the potential to lift millions out of poverty; coming up with an innovative concept in development which can transform or even bring about a metamorphosis of the third world; and designing a world-class training programme on an important theme. Many will fall in this trap, especially young graduates who aspire to build a career in such fields. These people most often act like this under the influence of their donors. On the other hand, there are leaders who face many challenges; own every failure as their own but continue pursuing their interests and make big achievements for themselves and for the organisations they work for in the long run. We need to choose between the two. 

To Conclude

Many organizations survive for several decades. Survival is one thing; but to excel in a field and make a mark on the society is an entirely different thing. To sum up, it is difficult to say clearly what goes into building institutions that remain vibrant and stand the test of time in a very dynamic and highly complex environment; but one can easily find out the reasons for the slow death of many institutions. One of them, perhaps the most important one, is hiring street-smart mediocre people to perform intellectually challenging jobs. The challenge is in avoiding those mistakes.

?M. Dinesh Kumar is Executive Director of Institute for Resource Analysis and Policy, Hyderabad, INDIA ([email protected]). Mahendra Singh Verma is Advisor-Projects and Partnerships; and Dr MVK Sivamohan is Senior Adviser (honorary)-IRAP.