CWG New Delhi 2010 - was it a success?

All over - newspapers ,media and of course the officials are all raving about the 'success' of the CWG . Just 2 weeks ago they were all at it with daggers .What changed ? Actually , nothing ! The real problem is most people have no clue on how to define success , neither do they know what is required to make the games successful .

Let us start from first principles - in order to define success - what were the games expected to deliver ? What was the job of the Organizing committee along with the host govt with the support of the Intl federation ?

• First - to set up best in class facilities for conducting international level events in sports .
• Second - to provide comfort and ease for participants and spectators
• Third - to provide some amount of entertainment especially visitors to the host country .

Wait a minute ! is winning ( or losing ) by the host country or an other country a mark of success for the games ??? - No at all - That is not a success factor for the games !

On all the above 3 areas - the only area which could be considered successful is the entertainment - Thankfully this was handled by professionals - who had history of conducting such events for the movie world and so it worked well.

What went wrong with the first and second category? they were not given to professionals - an event of this magnitude cannot be handled by bureaucrats and politicians ( more so with so much of opportunities for corruption ) .

Sadly project management took a back seat - obviously with vcry little processes in place . Instead of having professionals do the job - - it was mistakenly thought it we could pull it off by routine management .

There is no sense in falsely patting ourselves for our extraordinary ability to handle crisis and making 'jugaad' a practice for everything . At what cost , stress and quality ?(not to leave out bad publicity )

On Team work and Indians

Most will agree that Indians have shown a poor track record when it comes to team work ( and cooperation ) . There are innumerable examples. If we consider sports Indians are world champions in individual games like chess , cue sports and have done well in wrestling ,archery and boxing . None of the team based sports like soccer , volleyball , hockey (cricket is not a team sport in the real sense ) have Indians in the lead . Why have we succeeded in software and pharma research, because in both areas, people can work on their own, figuring out algorithms or molecular structures. The negative conclusion: Indians don't work well in teams. Indian diaspora working and living outside India whether in the US ,UK or Africa have not been able to get together and the Indian government has not also facilitated this effectively . This is in sharp contrast to the Chinese where a major part of FDI into China is from overseas Chinese.

When the Japanese came to work in India to develop the Maruti Suzuki car, a joke went around that one Indian was equal to 10 Japanese: Indians were very smart, capable and dedicated individuals. But 10 Indians were equal to 1 Japanese: Indians lacked team spirit and co-operation.(Refer article by Sam Pitroda)

A popular metaphor related to team work is that Indians have a ‘crab‘ mentality . If someone is trying to climb higher and achieve more, the others just drag him down. The signal that the others send out is, " I wouldn't do it; I wouldn't let you do it; and if by chance you start succeeding, we will all gang up and make sure that you don't get to do it." (Refer article by Sam Pitroda)

Why are Indians are so poorly endowed when it comes to team work ? A peep into history and culture will unravel the mystery ….

History is replete with many examples of our lack of team work . Porus lost to Alexander .So was the case in India – China war of 1962, ….and one of the reasons for the British to come into India ( Refer Gurcharan Das - India Unbound )

The genesis of the problem could be traced to the hierarchical and feudalistic system followed in the Indian sub-continent for ages. Today’s India was once a huge number of smaller princely states or kingdoms where feudalism and hierarchical social system was prevalent everywhere . Seniority and with it power and influence were the main tenets for doing just about anything .The caste system which was designed to be an excellent tool for resource allocation and productivity got corrupted and hijacked into serving subservient ends and dominated cultural and social practices . So while India imbibed the democratic system and could do away with the Maharajas , but the basic cultural and social practices could not be changed overnight ( understandably , as progress would obviously be very much slower in a social context )

A fall-out of the hierarchical and feudal social structure and work culture is the emphasis on respectability and status between white and blue collared workers or physical and mental workers . Granted ,that this feeling is not the same around the country and it differs from place to place in terms of sectors , however it still exists as a basic ethos .

Team work requires not only good leadership but also followership . While Indians accept the need for the former the latter is rarely understood . A hierarchical mindset , status consciousness and deficiency in some qualities - respect for others, openness, honesty, communication, willingness to disagree, resolution of conflict and giving importance to the larger goal of the team (Refer article Sam Pitroda )instead of the individual or personal agendas - all these contribute to the poor showing in being team players .

People , process and compartmentalization

The debate on People v/s Process is an an ongoing exercise and some feel you need a combination along with Technology ( at least in today's times ) to make things work .

Looking at it from a East -West perspective , the West is considered to be more process oriented, an average person will tend to follow rules and look for an orderly way to work things out and is generally organized .It is not surprising that over a 100 years during his US visit Swami Vivekananda found that they had excellent organization skills which was deficient in India .( This lacuna continues even today ) .

The East in contrast is considered more relationship oriented - which has perplexed many in the West though now they understand it far better . In China it is called Guangxi or relationship building . In India it is similar though my own understanding is that it is less structured and required more at operating levels and day to day transactions . It is necassary for getting anything done - from routine day to day transactions - at the bank , in schools , government offices etc . There is no element of corruption or 'grease payment' involved in these transactions , it is just that knowing a person because of family connections , friendship or sometimes just an acquaintance increases the comfort level between the parties involved .

In today's world this relationship orientation finds conflicts with the practice of organized or process oriented working ( which is a western concept and hardly imbibed by most Indians ) .Indians have resolved this by working in their own way and yet achieving what they set out to .All along they may not strictly follow any process or may even by pass it but yet achieve outputs and quality . If there is a process in place or rules prescribed to be followed , these are used not to enable a systematic way of working but only to comply and possibly record in terms of documentation which is done meticulously . This conflicting dichotomy between procedures and actual work is so well accepted that it has pervaded all forms working and public life be it of workplace , home or in dealing with the community or government institutions .So, rules exist , but are not followed or are disregarded.

This practice , attitude or trait may imply that most Indian institutions or businesses will at best be mediocre . Paradoxially it is far from the truth and this surprises an average westerner or even many Indians . On all fronts , be it education , business or industry we can see pockets of excellence and this is being noticed more and more now . How can we explain this ?

I call this ' compartmentalization ' - Indians are quite comfortable when they achieve excellence in one area but not able translate it in other areas which are very much part and parcel of their lives . So, they may achieve the highest grades in school or the university but unable to practice it in their work . One finds the world best companies which have achieved awards for the best quality but in general the quality of products or services is far inferior . Cleanliness starts and ends at home and personal hygiene is very high whereas public cleanliness is a far cry . One can go on and on with so many examples ...

Elephants , tigers and dragons

Many authors have used the elephant as a metaphor to describe India (though some authors choose to use a tiger ).

While the tiger is quick , nimble and fast , the elephant is slow , has great capacity and seem to be sure in the long run .

Recently , Dr Manmohan Singh in an address at the Pravasi Bharati Divas meeting implied that we need to have patience to see results as he compared India to an elephant.(The Hindu , 9 Jan 2010)

The four Asian Tigers are Hongkong, Taiwan, Singapore,South Korea had exceptional growth rates between the 60s to 90s and graduated to advanced and high income economies.Learning from them other countries have followed suit - Philipines ,Malaysia, Indonesia and Thailand sometimes being considered as the New Four Asian Tigers.(Wikipedia)

Various other authors have used the metaphor of an elephant for India . While India may never roar ahead like the Asian tigers, Gurcharan Das argues, it will advance like a wise elephant, moving steadily and surely, pausing occasionally to reflect on its past and to enjoy the journey (Das, India Unbound)

Relating to manufacturing , is India an elephant or a tiger ? (Hulten,Srinivasan) . The authors analyse and conclude that if larger-scale Indian manufacturing industry could be isolated and extracted from the Indian subcontinent and relocated to an island or peninsula of its own, it too might well be considered part of the Asian Miracle.

Talking about elephants and tigers what about the dragon ? - The metaphor commonly used to describe China ! India with China have shown exceptional growth under very different environments and reasons .

It will be interesting to watch how India progresses in the next decade .

India the + and the -

India and her people - behaviourial traits ...

Plus

•Adapatability ■ Agility

•Diversity - managing and working in groups

•Cost consciousness

•Crisis management

•Managing adversity

Minus

•Spirit of excellence

•Organization ■ Team work

•Productivity ■ Quality ■ Safety consciousness

•Self confidence

•Discipline

any more ideas ?

Does India have the capability to achieve India 2020?

Why this blog ?
Many persons,groups,bodies and governments have formulated Vision 2020 plans . Each is different from the other but what is common among them is that they are still grand plans ... a vision of where we like to reach !
This blog will be to do a reality check of our capabilities ... does India has the capabilities to achieve its 2020 objectives ???