Trust everyone but not the devil inside of them!

Below is an interesting column to read about “Why Start-ups end up in the Governance Soup” - https://www.livemint.com/companies/start-ups/why-startups-end-up-in-the-governance-soup-11651423851890.html. No wonder SEBI has its hands full with a framework proposal for IPOs of new age Tech Start-ups.

The article compels us to think of the most elemental aspects of running organizations – about people, their values, behaviours, representative culture, all that goes into making choices; after all founders, heads of businesses, board of directors; billionaires or not - are all humans and privy to lapses in judgement!

Take the case of Will Smith and Chris Rock – Academy awards debacle! What a momentous occasion for Will, his first Academy win for “King Richard” Movie, definite high moment for Will and as Denzel Washington aptly describes - "Well, there's a saying when the devil ignores you, the devil goes, 'Oh, no, leave him alone, he's my favourite. Don't bother him. Then you know you're doing something wrong, the devil got a hold of that circumstance that night." Clearly, from famous celebrities to business tycoons of start-ups or Unicorns – all need to confront their devils to avoid such pitfalls!

The way organizational ecosystems are evolving – today all companies – giant and small are facing two pivotal realities; that of #Agility and #Disruption. No matter how matured organizations are – they are vulnerable if NOT nimble, customer centric, innovative and relevant. No wonder legacy organizations are also transforming to set up entrepreneurial working philosophies with more #decentralized, #empowered, #collaborative ecosystems.

Just goes to show how critical Talent Strategy is in overall organizational business architecture and particularly with the above backdrop in context. Emphasizing on point of “Ethics and Governance” that the author raises – point to ponder is whether your Talent Strategy is optimising the levers of Organizational Design, Performance Management, Learning and Succession; for a robust ethics and governance culture: (Answers to below questions may add some new dimensions)

1.?????Are teams structured in a way that not only are they collaborating to achieve top-line results but also are each other’s watchdogs with high accountability for bottom-line as well?

2.?????How roles are defined, measured and interdependent - Are roles overlapping, without differentiation or unique, differentiated, skill based?

(The above two points become particularly pertinent in case of fluid networked structures where teams are often combined, disbanded across projects and role clarity is critical to ensure governance riders are satisfactorily fulfilled as context demands)

3.?????Above point leads to leadership strength and capability to offer transparency and clarity and whether leaders are committed to seeking / sharing diverse views, perspectives, feedback with internal / external stakeholders, mentors, team members, partners?

4.?????Is organizational Performance Management and Learning framework recognizing, rewarding, reinforcing behaviours, skills and positive intent efforts for desired outcomes?

5.?????Is failure penalized or learning from failures recognized?

6. Are successors being built for tomorrow's challenges and future roles requiring new age skills?