Office: Office – Creativity

One of the harsh realities of life when you work for a support function like Marketing is when you are asked to come up with “creative” solutions for in-house publicity (because we believe in crowd sourcing and we may not have money to hire agencies to do this  job).

Creative? Sure, I can be creative, you say. Didn’t I just write food reviews about that new restaurant and pass it off as ‘client testimonial’ in the company’s recent pitch deck? We earned a “wow” from the customer (That the restaurant was so happy with the publicity that they refrained from pressing charges is another matter). And how about the time I came up with the breast cancer awareness campaign? (PS: Does it matter that I was drunk and needed to vent and that only pink color highlighters were available for me to scribble on the reception walls?)

I live CREATIVE man, bring on the brief, you metaphorically yell.

Ok. How about “fresh and vibrant”?, says the boss with a wide smile that indicates he had spinach at last night’s party.

You: Fresh? Like soapy fresh or perfume fresh?

Boss: Umm. You know, fresh. Like FRESH.

You: Umm.. Ok. Vibrant like multi color? Gujarati tribal clothes type?

Boss: No. that’s bright. I want bright. Bright that is vibrant. You know like nice colors. Punchy tagline.

You: Huh? Tagline? What tagline?

Boss: I want every picture to have a tagline.

You: Picture? You mean the entire imagery we create? Like an Ad?

Boss: Yes. You nailed it! I want an Ad Bro!. That will be put up in our reception area.

Seven iterations and as many cups of black coffee later….

Boss: Umm. This is kind of not resonating the message Bro.

You: Didn’t you say fresh and vibrant?

Boss: Yes. And that is exactly what this is not. I want fresh and vibrant. This is like something done in a hurry.

Even as you want to tell him “YES, IT WAS DONE IN A HURRY, since you came up with this just this morning,” your brain tells you something else and you end up saying

You: Fresh and Vibrant. Like how?

Boss: I know you can do better. (give fake sympathetic look). Why don’t you have lunch and then try?

Seventeen iterations, two coffee machine malfunctions, and three green teas later…..

You: What are the timelines on this thing?

Boss: Leave that to me. Just do your job.

You: Yes, but we have had 17 iterations. Are we getting anywhere close to your idea?

Boss: No. This picture is not telling me anything. This is not calling out to me. Sorry. But I don’t like this.

You: But I stuck to the brief. What more do you want?

Boss:  I want fresh and vibrant! Colors! Green yellow, pink, white, red! Well, not red, I don’t like red. But you get me right?

You: But that will hide our message and the colors will take precedence.

Boss: I get what you are trying to say.. Hmm. Um… You know what? Forget about the message.

You: Huh? But why? Without a message the graphic will become plain art.

Boss: What’s bad about that? I like art. Art is fresh and vibrant.

You: You can commission an artist and use him/her to create something. I am not the one with those skills?

Boss: You are not an artist? What kind of a designer are you then?

You: I am not a designer either.

Tail piece: You copied something you saw on Google because the boss “loved it.”  He loved it so much that he insisted on signing the ‘master piece’ with his fake signature.  He also gave you a 500 rupee dinner voucher to dine at the Taj. You know the voucher will not cover event the cost of coffee. 

Office: Office – Decision making

It is the only thing that decides the culture of your organization, irrespective of what brand managers, HR, or employees have to say. Touted as a key managerial trait, its absence is pronounced among the manager community. The more senior the person, the better his decision making abilities, one would assume. That isn't always the case, secretaries will tell you. In my limited experience, I have seen five types of decision makers.

1.       The slasher – This person hates accumulating things – in his inbox or on his table. He takes the clean desk/ desktop policy to the next level – clean decision making. Remember the Japanese Manga series where the guy with the sword, goes "Khachak! Khachak!" slicing through people like watermelons? This category of manager does the same with approvals.  By the end of the day, he likes to keep his mail box devoid of any requests for approval.

2.       The pig – This type of manager loves to hoard and not respond to any requests – be it an expense claim or the budget for the next quarter's plan. The most you can get from him/her is a breezy "Hi. How are things?" before vanishing into his/her cabinet. Upon confronting this person, you can expect one of two responses "I haven't received that email" or "I will look into it." And the cycle will go on until either you or the manager quits. By the way, the odds of quitting favor you.

3.       The cat – This variety cares only for himself/herself. Obviously only those decisions that are important to him/her would be made. Everything else can rot in the mail box, including something as petty as your career. The only way to motivate this animal is by showing him a mirror and telling him how he can like a lion. And of course, he will decide what type of mirror he wants to seem himself in.

4.       The Lion – This one takes pride in delegating decision making. He takes few decisions, but those would be the ones he would truly be valued for. While he may not bother with your mobile phone bill reimbursement, he will decide on you promotion. He may not care about what tie you wear to work, but will chide you when you don't turn up for meetings on time. Nothing puts him off more than realizing he has been forced into making a penny's worth of decision.

5.       The teenager – Loves freedom but wants no responsibility. This type of decision maker is the first to clear his name from any potential repercussions of decision making. He will refute any claims made previously and will avoid leaving a trace of any decision making. If your performance manager is like this, you will receive a new performance rating every second day until the deadline ends. Whatever was the rating last saved, would be the one awarded to you. If you question him on it, he'll say "The system only saved that version. Next time, I promise to save it earlier".

So what type of a decision maker are you?

The Insider Reports: Management Lessons from Harry Potter

The first time I laid hands on Harry Potter (the book, of course) was in 2002 near the Pune Railway station. A man was selling pirated copies of the first 3 books for Rs 120. With nothing better to do, I bought it. The set of books came with me to Chennai , remained locked in my bookshelf for 2 years and then followed me back to Pune (where I went for post graduate studies). I read the three books in quick succession and soon after bought all successive books legitimately from the bookstore.

Now, after 10 years, I continue to re-read the series, discovering a new perspective each time.  This time my husband Vikram pipped me to the idea. We have jointly written an article on Management lessons from Harry Potter and Silicon India, a management and technology site, has published it.

You can read the blog at http://blogs.siliconindia.com/DrVikramVenkateswaran/Management_Lessons_from_Harry_Potter_by_Dr_Vikram__Archana_Venkat-bid-2L4x9G6046983519.html

In case the link does not work, please see below the article.

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Harry Potter is one of the best loved books by children and many adults alike. Some attribute it to J.K Rowling's vivid imagination, unraveling mysteries more complex in every progressing book. Others say it was good marketing fuelled by the reach of the online medium. For me the most compelling reason for being a Harry Potter fan is discovering something new every time I re-read the series. This time it is the parallels I can draw between the worlds of Death Eaters & Charms and business management.

Imagine Order of the Phoenix (OoP) to be a company. It would be one where the visionary (Dumbledore himself) sets clear goals and like minded employees are inspired to join. Irrespective of age, race or skill levels, recruits are hired by their commitment to the vision (in this case – a world in which wizards\witches and Muggles (Non magic people) live in harmony) and trained to become capable for doing their job.

The competitor to the Order of the Phoenix is Deatheaters Inc, led by Lord Voldemort. Employees are coerced to join and are afraid to leave. Predictably most are picked based on their race (or blood status) and are more or less of the same age with similar skills. Not very different from the real world, where companies often prefer to choose candidates from pedigreed backgrounds (IITs, IIMs, Ivy league universities or prominent family backgrounds) having more or less the same kind of skills and interests ("standards" is the word used by most recruiters).  Consequently there is little emphasis on training and skills up gradation and most of the work that matters is done by the owner, Voldemort, himself. In most promoter driven firms in India, this is the case.

While Deatheater's Inc works as a centralized business unit to ensure that all decisions are ultimately take by Voldemort, OoP believes in delegation and empowerment. Nowhere is this more apparent than in the last book where Ron and Hermione destroy a horcrux (and so does Neville) when Harry is otherwise expected to do the job. The element of surprise catches Voldemort unawares. The OoP also incubates a smaller organization consisting mostly of students from Hogwarts called Dumbledore's Army (DA). It is DA that acts as a game changer when push comes to shove towards the end.

When Molly Weasley, a house wife rarely projected as having a taste for violence, disarms and kills the powerful Bellatrix Lestrange, it shows how an empowered individual is more committed than a merely talented one. Another classic example of is the time after Harry's birth when Voldemort had to go into hiding. Deatheaters Inc totally collapsed and was operating in shadows and was revived only by the resurgence of Lord Voldemort, while OoP remained active and helped protect Harry till he comes of age and helping him defeat Lord Voldemort.

From the marketing perspective, OoP again did a far better job than DI. Their communication was crisp and concise. Their articulation of the vision that OoP saw for the world was simplified and all inclusive. They used Harry Potter as a brand ambassador and this helped them gain followers among the younger witches and wizards. DI on the other hand projected such an image of exclusivity that favoured older wizards and witches of pure blood status who in many ways had lost touch with reality. The inclusion of Muggle born magicians in OoP also helped in extending cooperation with the real world, whereas DI could not take advantage of such an association.

Even when the OoP was on the back foot after the death of Dumbledore they operated through other marketing channels like the underground radio station and 'The Quibber'. In other words OoP recognized the need that the prospects had to feel safe in a post Dumbledore world and they were able to find channels to articulate this vision.

Finally, it was a coaching nature of the CEO Dumbledore that really helped OoP achieves its aims. Everybody knew their part and was empowered to do their jobs. So long as the final goals were achieved, it did not matter who was responsible for the victories. DI's vision was to kill Harry Potter. However, Voldemort complicated this vision by ensuring that only he was to kill Harry. This resulted in wastage of time as Harry, though often caught by many death eaters at different times, could still not be killed by them.

An example in the corporate world is the leadership style of JRD Tata, who got the most competent people to run his companies. These managers were empowered to do what was best to fulfill the Tatas' vision for India.

 Many would argue that in the fictional world things are perfect. Good has to triumph over evil. Whereas in the real world, people like Voldemort do succeed. Is that so? No. A look at the history of business around the world will show, how overly centralized companies or those heavily dependent on one person for execution (promoter, CEO) have largely failed (or are failing). Little wonder then that most people prefer to join companies such as TATA's Google, Facebook, 3M, GE, Intel and Asian Paints which have remained on the Top 10 employer listings.

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