Being A Responsible Corporate Manager

In  the month a product of a company gets recalled due to performance issues in one country – it gets approval in another country. This statement is by itself more than enough to start a series of questions in your mind; starting with - how could it be so careless, or worse?  The same product, as per news reports, mind you. The deeper you go into the case, the more the questions that arise. Despite being aware of complaints, the said company went ahead with imports of that product. It gets even more murkier as you go into the case further.

Be that as it may; my article is not about that case; so let me just be circumspect. Suffice it to state that the above is basis a real story, mint-fresh and of latest vintage. A current news – though you would not know it, as only one Newspaper has complete damning coverage in the 5 that I checked. 1 of these 5 was silent on this; 3 had incomplete coverage. A side-thought here – that last bit seems just bit too coincidental, too convenient and too opportune. Why only 1 newspaper? I wonder.

My question really is : where do you draw the line? If you, as a manager, are aware of serious issues in your product – should it not be your core responsibility to highlight it, and not sell it, not cause damage or loss to customers? Look what happened here; despite 4 newspapers playing safe – one major one published the complete story – as of now, when I typing this. The damage to the company has been caused; so who wins in this? Not the company, and certainly not the customers. Skirting ethics, or avoiding the issue, or playing dumb or whatever {I don’t know specifics; so stating all reasons} – didn’t help. It turned into a lose-lose situation.

And yet, ethics are skirted, or shortcuts taken, or inordinate risks taken on, or probabilities ignored, or feedback / developments ignored. It may not be an ethics issue all the time; but it certainly is an issue of hardcore process, management skill, leadership and vision. Managers, gung-ho on adrenaline, driven by their ambition or sometimes naked greed or targets or pressures or misjudgement or lack of skill & knowledge – or a combination of all or some of these factors – take on massive risks. These steps end up destroying more value than they create. And yet, people continue doing more of the same!

The way we can approach this is  - one, we can analyse each specific case of crippling loss to companies, find fault with people. Or two – we can try and find common factors, triggers, aspects, lacunae, problem  areas that allows such sub-par ethical approaches / ill-conceived plans / over ambitious plans / short terms steps or tactics / personality or leadership issues / selfish motives / some or all of these – to prosper. We can focus on understanding why these things happen; we can choose to rise above the controversies, and understand underlying motivators and parameters that lead to such disasters. Sadly, as on date, we tend to do needless and pointless autopsies of all such cases – which are pretty common nowadays, rather than learn any real lessons.

What is worse is that some places / organizations / newspapers / journals  / regulators actually do the latter, making for excellent learning opportunities – identifying core systemic reasons for failure. But the practicing manager routinely ignores such sage, informed content as bookish stuff, and favours the spicy autopsy and blame-game. Result is that no real lessons are learnt. I am reminded of a top report by a top “place” {lets be generic here}, which actually identifies deep systemic issues of a major issue. I am yet to read that report anywhere; I had to google for it to get it.

This brings me to another link in the chain – our Media. Why, oh why, oh why, oh why, oh why – is our media not leading change? The media can find space on its portals, on its pages for spicy stuff, for US news, or Non Resident Indians – but not for pertinent real issues? Part of the reason is – they are in it for a profit; if we aren’t interested in it – they have one less reason to print it. Sad, but brutally true. But, that said -  shouldn’t it be far more vocal  than it is, within the laws of the land at any rate? Shouldn’t it try to bring out real issues, rather than print what sells?

There is no easy answer; the answer to this conundrum cannot be had through revolutions, movements etc; this is systemic change. That means slow, planned and calibrated movements along a particular direction. Things will change, for sure – but that needs all of us to change,  even if it is change just a little. That will be enough. The more the people focus on the real causative factor, and not the personality, the better for all of us.

If we want our society to be more longer-term focused, more ethical, less corrupt, more community conscious – the change has to start with the person staring at you in the mirror. Be the change you want to see in the world! And yes – reading isnt bookish; long-term visioned ethical planning isnt personally damaging; looking beyond I Me Myself isnt bad or “impractical”; and so on. We, as a people, have to change – one person at a time…. That is the only way forward…