Illu & Rangoli - A Very Rare Form of Art That Finally Became Extinct

People who haven't seen the Illumination and the Rangoli competition on Diwali in IIT Kharagpur have absolutely no idea what's it about. Though lately it has been covered a bit in some national media, still it remains an almost unknown facade of IIT Kharagpur, which is unique not only to the rest of world, but also to all the other IITs. It's an excellent example of a mammoth team work, unparalleled intricate project planning & management - accurate to the minutest level, timely delivery of the highest quality with more than 6 sigma precision (it never failed ever) and finally a very high quality of art that you would see no where else in the world.

First let be try to explain the magnanimity of the event. Rangoli is a well known form of art very popular in most parts of India. It's an art with various powdered colors (used in Indian festivals like Diwali and Holi) known as gulal and also some other colored materials like tumeric or haldi powder. In most houses in North India the women folk create colorful Rangoli during festivals. So from that point of view it's not something that's unique. But what's indeed unique is the size. Generally the common rooms of the hostels were used to create these huge Rangolis which used to be at least 20'x20' or even more. As you can see in the above picture, it's not possible to capture a full Rangoli in a single frame of a picture unless you break the walls of the rooms and tale a snap from 100ft. above.

Next let me explain the most unique thing - that's the illumination or more commonly known as Illu in the KGP lingo. The above picture is just a portion of a lighted facade of an Illu of one of the hostels. The entire front elevation of all the hostels used to be lighted like what you can see in the picture. The interesting thing here is that the complete lighting was done with earthen lamps - holding a small quantity of oil which can burn a small piece of cloth dipped in it only for a few minutes. Huge structures, called chatai, stitched out of flattened pieces of bamboo - sized at least 20'x20' - were put up against the walls of the hostels covering the complete front elevations. The three storied hostel buildings stretching some 100 or 200 ft were completely covered with these chatais. Depending on the actual size, at least some dozens of chatais were required to cover the walls for each hostel. Chalks were used to draw marks on each of the chatais such that when all these chatais were put up in the correct order a complete sketch was visible from a distance. The earthen lamps were then tied to the chatais along the chalk-marks, which formed the outlines of the sketch. When all the lamps were all lit together then the sketch appeared on the chatais. From a distance they looked like huge bill boards. That's what we used to call Illu. The sketches used to be generally chosen from Indian mythologies, mainly Ramayana and Mahabharata.

Now let's come to the monumental task required to put up the Illu and the Rangoli. It required serious planning and meticulous execution. I don't think I would ever get to see such levels of project planning and execution ever in my life. The corporates need to take lessons of leadership and team work from this. The entire event required a hierarchical team with an over all project manager, team-leads for various teams, a very detailed project planning with task breakdown to the minutest levels, regular tracking of the project for 2 weeks and finally a fully motivated team of few hundred residents of each hostel working almost round the clock without any grievance and grudge. The over all project manager used to be the president or the secretary for Socio Cultural activities of the hall. You can see this post as the CEO of a company. Apart from him, all the other team leads were selected solely based on their artistic skills. Like during the last two years of my stay in RK Hall of Residence, Pushpen used to be the unanimous choice to lead the sketches and Rangoli because he was the best painter in our hall. There were other guys also with good aptitude for art, but still there was never any confusion or politics in selecting Pushpen as the GM in charge of Rangoli. Most companies fail because they choose the wrong person - mostly due to legacy or internal politics. But Illu and Rangoli never failed.

Next comes the ingenuity required to draw the sketches for Rangoli and Illu. Off course the sketches were drawn first on paper and then Pushpen used to blow it up using a very simple technique that had been passed to the juniors for years by the seniors. Pushpen used to first create a miniature of the complete front facade of the hostel on a paper where 1 cm used to represent 10ft. In this scale a chatai of size 20'x20' was a small square of 2cm by 2cm in his paper. Once the miniature sketch was complete on the paper, each chatai got its portion defined. Pushpen used to enumerate each chatai based on its coordinates in his paper and assigned the other artistically inclined people for each chatai. Pushpen had the complete right to choose his team based on the skills he felt were required to mark the outlines of the sketches on the chatais with chalk. This is again something most corporates miss now-a-days and finally land up in big mess.

Each chatai owner used to first draw his portion on a paper with a larger scale, say 1cm representing now 1ft. As each chatai used to be 20'x20' in size he could fit his sketch on a paper sized 20cm by 20cm. This helped him to blow up the sketch on the chatai very accurately. Pushpen used to keep a track of the progress on each chatai. I still wonder how meticulously the guys used to blow up the sketches that, when all 100 chatais were stitched together, nothing looked out of proportion.

The chalk marks on the chatais were ready a few days before Diwali. The next major task was to put those up against the walls. Enough safety measures were taken to avoid any accident in putting up chatais as high as 30 ft. I haven't heard of any accident during my four years of stay. Once the chatais were put up the earthen lamps were tied along the chalk marks.

The climax was the few minutes before the troupe of judges came for inspection. As the lamps would burn only for 5 minutes in the normal scenario, they had to be lit only when the judges came. We had a team of people giving latest information about the coordinates of the judges. When the judges were just 1-2 minutes from our hostel we started the task of lighting the lamps - the task that required the maximum coordination and involvement. Around 20000 lamps had to be lit in 1 or 2 minutes of time by some 150-200 people. This meant each person lighting 100 lamps in less than 2 minutes - that's at the rate of almost 1 lamp a second. Here also we used a very simple tactic that had been handed over by the seniors for years. Each person, with 100 lamps to light, used to first light 50 alternate lamps in the first minute so that even if he failed to light the remaining 50 still the portion of the outline of the sketch assigned to him would be lit - even though some what sparsely - by alternate lamps. In the second minute he would come back and light the remaining alternate lamps. I don't think there can be any better example of planning for a contingency or disaster management. Those were the days before any of us went to management schools. But still if I look back I find that we used to follow everything that any successful project should follow. Perhaps it's true that management is just common sense!!

It's just fascinating to even think of the scenario where an entire sketch of 200'x30' comes up to light in just 2 minutes of time. The satisfaction was immense and the competition a very fiercely fought one. Even the girls used to put up equal effort.

I've graduated in 96, more than 13 years. But still if I've to mention a single thing about IIT KGP that stands out it's undoubtedly the Illu and the Rangoli. More than the high quality of art involved it taught us the best lessons of team work, obeying the orders of the team lead and completing a project on time. Though nothing was maintained on a MS Project Planner, still each of us knew precisely our tasks. Not a single moment was wasted. Not a single order was contested. We had supreme faith on Pushpen about his abilities. Such a faith came only from the credibility that he had shown in the previous years. We never fought for power, never wasted time in useless discussions.

I wish we saw the same thing in our corporate lives!!

Sadly... this tradition of Illu and Rangoli has come to an end. 2007 was the last time that KGP saw the Illu. We heard that the participation had dwindled down a lot gradually. I feel this had to happen sometime. Even ten years back KGP was in secluded part of the world - it took at least 30 minutes on a bicycle (the only mode of transport other than the rickshaw) from the railway station. Once you're in KGP, we'd nothing else of the outside world. All our entertainment and fun and frolic were within KGP. Even internet connections were things of luxury and were available only in the labs. But with time, every room in the hostel had internet connection - which opened up unlimited entertainment within the four walls of your room. Also I'm sure the seclusion would have ended in the last few years. The very tradition of Illu and Rangoli which used to be our life line became an obligation in later times. Professional competition also increased fiercely. The two weeks spent on the preparation were gradually seen as sheer wastage of time and resources. People would have rather enjoyed spending that time in some academic preparations. What-so-ever be the actual reason it's indeed a sad end to an art that never existed elsewhere and will never exist anywhere else.

Reference and source of pictures

• ILU snaps by Sandeep Gupta
• IIT Foundation site
• Pictures by Amit Kumar Saha
• Maddy's Blog: ILU 2005, Rangoli 2005, Others
• Kundan Sen's Collection on Illu
• Other Kundan Sen KGP collection: SF 96, SF 97, SF 98, KGP Campus
• eSnips
• Video on Illu (RK Hall)

The Five Fingers

Following is the transcript of the address given by Indra Nooyi, president and CFO of PepsiCo ( PEP ), at the Columbia University Business School graduation ceremonies on May 15

Good evening, everyone.

Dean Hubbard, distinguished faculty, honored graduates, relieved parents, family, and friends, it's a distinct pleasure to be in New York City this evening to celebrate the biggest milestone to date in the lives of you, the young men and women before us: your graduation from Columbia University Business School.

It may surprise you, graduates, but as big a night as this is for you, it's an even bigger night for your parents. They may look calm and collected as they sit in the audience, but deep inside they're doing cartwheels, dancing the Macarena, and practically speaking in tongues, they're so excited. This is what happens when parents anticipate that their bank accounts will soon rehydrate after being bone-dry for two years. So, for everyone here this evening, it's a very special occasion. And I'm delighted to share it with you.

I am keenly aware that graduates traditionally refer to our time together this evening as the calm before the storm. Some graduates -- perhaps those who minored in self-awareness -- refer to the commencement address as "the snooze before the booze." However you describe my comments this evening, please know that I understand. It wasn't that long ago that I was in your place. And I remember the day well. I knew that I owed my parents -- my financial benefactors -- this opportunity to revel in our mutual accomplishment. Yet, as the guy at the podium droned on about values, goals, and how to make my dreams take flight, I remember desperately checking and rechecking my watch. I thought, "I deserve to party, and this codger's cramping my style!"

In one of life's true ironies, I am now that codger. Well...I'm the female equivalent. A codg-ette, I guess. And I now understand that values, goals, and how to make dreams take flight, really are important. So being a firm believer that hindsight is one of life's greatest teachers, allow me to make belated amends.

To that distinguished, erudite, and absolutely brilliant man whom I silently dissed many years ago: mea culpa. Big, BIG mea culpa!

This evening, graduates, I want to share a few thoughts about a topic that should be near and dear to your hearts: the world of global business. But, I'm going to present this topic in a way that you probably haven't considered before. I'm going to take a look at how the United States is often perceived in global business, what causes this perception, and what we can do about it. To help me, I'm going to make use of a model.

To begin, I'd like you to consider your hand. That's right: your hand.

Other than the fact that mine desperately needs a manicure, it's a pretty typical hand. But, what I want you to notice, in particular, is that the five fingers are not the same. One is short and thick, one tiny, and the other three are different as well. And yet, as in perhaps no other part of our bodies, the fingers work in harmony without us even thinking about them individually. Whether we attempt to grasp a dime on a slick, marble surface, a child's arm as we cross the street, or a financial report, we don't consciously say, "OK, move these fingers here, raise this one, turn this one under, now clamp together. Got it!" We just think about what we want to do and it happens. Our fingers -- as different as they are -- coexist to create a critically important whole.

This unique way of looking at my hand was just one result of hot summer evenings in my childhood home in Madras, India. My mother, sister, and I would sit at our kitchen table and -- for lack of a better phrase -- think big thoughts. One of those thoughts was this difference in our fingers and how, despite their differences, they worked together to create a wonderful tool.

As I grew up and started to study geography, I remember being told that the five fingers can be thought of as the five major continents: Europe, Asia, Africa, and North and South America. Now, let me issue a profound apology to both Australia and Antarctica. I bear neither of these continents any ill will. It's just that we humans have only five fingers on each hand, so my analogy doesn't work with seven continents.

Clearly, the point of my story is more important that geographical accuracy!

First, let's consider our little finger. Think of this finger as Africa. Africa is the little finger not because of Africa's size, but because of its place on the world's stage. From an economic standpoint, Africa has yet to catch up with her sister continents. And yet, when our little finger hurts, it affects the whole hand.

Our thumb is Asia: strong, powerful, and ready to assert herself as a major player on the world's economic stage.

Our index, or pointer finger, is Europe. Europe is the cradle of democracy and pointed the way for western civilization and the laws we use in conducting global business.

The ring finger is South America, including Latin America. Is this appropriate, or what? The ring finger symbolizes love and commitment to another person. Both Latin and South America are hot, passionate, and filled with the sensuous beats of the mambo, samba, and tango: three dances that -- if done right -- can almost guarantee you and your partner will be buying furniture together.

This analogy of the five fingers as the five major continents leaves the long, middle finger for North America, and, in particular, the United States. As the longest of the fingers, it really stands out. The middle finger anchors every function that the hand performs and is the key to all of the fingers working together efficiently and effectively. This is a really good thing, and has given the U.S. a leg up in global business since the end of World War I.

However, if used inappropriately -- just like the U.S. itself -- the middle finger can convey a negative message and get us in trouble. You know what I'm talking about. In fact, I suspect you're hoping that I'll demonstrate what I mean. And trust me, I'm not looking for volunteers to model.

Discretion being the better part of valor...I think I'll pass.

What is most crucial to my analogy of the five fingers as the five major continents, is that each of us in the U.S. -- the long middle finger -- must be careful that when we extend our arm in either a business or political sense, we take pains to assure we are giving a hand...not the finger. Sometimes this is very difficult. Because the U.S. -- the middle finger -- sticks out so much, we can send the wrong message unintentionally.

Unfortunately, I think this is how the rest of the world looks at the U.S. right now. Not as part of the hand -- giving strength and purpose to the rest of the fingers -- but, instead, scratching our nose and sending a far different signal.

I'd challenge each of you to think about how critically important it is for every finger on your hand to rise and bend together. You cannot simply "allow" the other four fingers to rise only when you want them to. If you've ever even tried to do that, you know how clumsy and uncoordinated it is.

My point here is that it's not enough just to understand that the other fingers coexist. We've got to consciously and actively ensure that every one of them stands tall together, or that they bend together when needed.

Today, as each of you ends one chapter in your young lives and begins another, I want you to consider how you will conduct your business careers so that the other continents see you extending a hand...not the finger. Graduates, it's not that hard. You can change and shape the attitudes and opinions of the other fingers -- the other continents and their peoples -- by simply ascribing positive intent to all your international business transactions. If you fail, or if you are careless, here's a perfect example of what can happen:

A U.S. businesswoman was recently in Beijing, China, on an international training assignment for a luxury hotel chain. The chain was rebranding an older Beijing hotel. As such, the toilets in the hotel had yet to be upgraded. There were no porcelain commodes, just holes in the floor. Until recently, this was the standard procedure in China.

Now, 8,000 miles removed from the scene, you and I -- and most Americans -- can shake our heads and giggle at the physical contortions and delicate motor skills necessary to make the best of this situation. We're simply not used to it. But to loudly and insultingly verbalize these feelings onsite, in front of the employees and guests of the host country, is bush league. And yet, that's exactly what this woman observed.

In the hotel's bar, the woman overheard a group of five American businessmen loudly making fun of the hotel's lavatory facilities. As the drinks flowed, the crass and vulgar comments grew louder, and actually took on an angry, jingoistic tone. While these Americans couldn't speak a word of Chinese, their Chinese hosts spoke English very well, and understood every word the men were saying.

And we wonder why the world views many Americans as boorish and culturally insensitive. This incident should make it abundantly clear. These men were not giving China a hand. They were giving China the finger. This finger was red, white, and blue, and had "the United States" stamped all over it.

Graduates, it pains me greatly that this view of America persists. Although I'm a daughter of India, I'm an American businesswoman. My family and I are citizens of this great country.

This land we call home is a most loving and ever-giving nation -- a Promised Land that we love dearly in return. And it represents a true force that, if used for good, can steady the hand -- along with global economies and cultures.

Yet to see us frequently stub our fingers on the international business and political stage is deeply troubling. Truth be told, the behaviors of a few sully the perception for all of us. And we know how often perception is mistaken for reality.

We can do better. We should do better. With your help, with your empathy, with your positive intent as representatives of the U.S. in global business, we will do better. Now, as never before, it's important that we give the world a hand...not the finger.

In conclusion, graduates, I want to return to my introductory comments this evening. I observed that as big a night as this is for you, it's an even bigger night for your parents. I ascribed their happiness to looking forward to a few more "George Washingtons" in their bank accounts. While this is certainly true, there is another reason.

Each of your parents believes that their hard work has paid off. Finally! They believe that maybe -- just maybe -- they have raised and nurtured the next Jack Welch, Meg Whitman, or Patricia Russo.

Don't disappoint them. Don't disappoint your companies. And don't disappoint yourselves.

As you begin your business careers, and as you travel throughout the world to assure America's continued global economic leadership, remember your hand. And remember to do your part to influence perception.

Remember that the middle finger -- the United States -- always stands out. If you're smart, if you exhibit emotional intelligence as well as academic intelligence, if you ascribe positive intent to all your actions on the international business stage, this can be a great advantage. But if you aren't careful -- if you stomp around in a tone-deaf fog like the ignoramus in Beijing -- it will also get you in trouble. And when it does, you will have only yourself to blame.

Graduates, as you aggressively compete on the international business stage, understand that the five major continents and their peoples -- the five fingers of your hand -- each have their own strengths and their own contributions to make. Just as each of your fingers must coexist to create a critically important tool, each of the five major continents must also coexist to create a world in balance. You, as an American businessperson, will either contribute to or take away from, this balance.

So remember, when you extend your arm to colleagues and peoples from other countries, make sure that you're giving a hand, not the finger. You will help your country, your company, and yourself, more than you will ever know.

Thank you very much.

Makes & Breaks in Politics: Analogies with Corporate World

One of the most important concepts in Indian culture and philosophy is that of the role of a creator, savior and destructor. People in India, since ages, have believed that the life cycle of anything, be it a nation, or civilization or a human life, is nothing but three phases of creation, survival and destruction. From the religious point of view also Brahma the creator, Vishnu the savior or protector and Shiva the destructor have been associated with the highest level of divinity. Keeping aside the theological aspects of this concept, it also has a very far reaching implication in almost everything thing – including the corporate world and the politics.

In a span of three decades the creation, growth and the recent debacle of BJP is a very relevant phenomenon in this respect. There have been introspections (or atmamanthan – one of the terms that Vajpayee had made popular even among the Hinglish crowd), review meetings, innumerable columns and writings on the causes of the debacle. Very logically nothing surprising has come out of all these. Most of the things that have been pointed out seem to be known to all. Nevertheless, none of these findings should be ignored with a ‘we-all-knew-this’ attitude like the kids in the class of Christopher Columbus who were all asked to place a boiled egg with shell firmly on a table and Columbus was the only one to break the shell, flatten the bottom and place it firmly on the table.

In Swami Vivekananda’s words ‘education is the manifestation of perfection already in man’. It’s no rocket science or the lack of it that makes someone a success or failure. In most cases debacles happen for reasons that are always known. So all the exercises for reinventing the reasons for any failure is always welcome. It’s also important to study success and failures at various fields and spheres because at the end of the day the reasons for any success or failure have some common things, knowing which just helps us to become more aware, educated and enlightened.

I’d like to analyze the growth and decline of a company which I’ve see from a close distance and draw an analogy to the same for politics. The intention is to infer that growth and decline always follow a particular pattern and the successful corporate and politicians always try to understand the pattern as best as possible.

The nineties saw a large number of technology startups in the San Francisco Bay area, popularly known as the Silicon Valley. The nearby universities at Stanford and Berkeley always provide an uninterrupted supply of talent to the Bay Area. Most technology companies either are head quartered or have important design centers in Bay Area. Intel, HP, Sun, Google all started in Bay Area. One of the technology areas which saw quite a few startups in nineties is called EDA or Electronic Design Automation, which provides CAD (Computer Aided Design) tools for designing semiconductor chips for electronic products. While semiconductor, which includes behemoths like Intel, IBM, Nokia, Motorola, Sony, Samsung and innumerable others, is a huge industry, EDA is very small. Individual revenues of Intel and Nokia are $40b and $50b respectively and the entire EDA industry has revenue of only $4b. That’s why EDA is perhaps one of the most fiercely - often bordering to nasty – competitive industries.

Little different from the Congress monopoly in Indian political scene, EDA had a sort of oligopoly dominated by the big brothers Cadence & Synopsys for quite some time. There were many small entities like the regional parties, but none could do anything significant till late nineties when a company named Magma suddenly rose like a sphinx. With barely a few million dollars of revenue in late nineties it attained $250m (1/8^th of total EDA GDP) in 2005. When the semiconductor design houses were getting frustrated with the complacencies of the biggie-duo Cadence & Synopsys, a dashing young Indian entrepreneur, Rajiv Madhavan, still in his twenties, brought in fresh hopes and newer and more efficient ideas for making chips. The big brothers Cadence and Synsys didn’t provide a one-stop-shop and the customers had to buy a suite in pieces and stitch them together. On the contrary Magma came up with a single stitched elegant suite. Most importantly Rajiv exactly understood the problems and the aspirations of his customers - the chip makers.

The result was phenomenal. Apart from Google, not many startups in Bay Area can boast of such a success in so less time. Magma came into being in late nineties and by 2002 it had already become number two in areas of its operation, displacing the big brother Cadence. Magma’s reputation in customer satisfaction became a matter of threat even to the other big brother Synopsys. The entire designer community felt proud to be associated with Magma. In started attracting the best of the talents.

In a few years Rajiv could ‘destruct’ the old hegemony of the big brothers Cadence & Synopsys and ‘create’ a successful company. Rajiv was indeed a great Creator with all the right traits required for ‘creation’. He was aggressive, emotional, passionate, possessive, ruthless and ambitious. The Big Brother Synopsys tried its best to put him down, but he was just unputdownable.

The next logical phase of the business is retention or ‘protection’ of the growth. There’s a startling difference between destruction/creation and protection. It’s no theology, but sheer practical sense, that the protector Vishnu has been given a totally different image than the destructor Shiva. The Protector is much more matured, not emotional, very practical, composed and off course much more benign than the Destructor. The traits required for destruction/creation and protection are as different as playing cricket and singing songs. It’s not necessary that Sachin Tendulkar can also sing like Kishore Kumar. That’s when the problem started with Magma.

Rajiv is an excellent creator but turned out to be a bad protector. He went on with the same aggression, arrogance and emotions with which he’d created the company. He slapped a law suit on the Big Brother Synopsys without much reason and drained huge amount of money for fighting the case. Synopsys kept on dragging the case as long as possible because they knew Magma would bleed heavily with the sky-rocketing legal costs in USA. His views and comments in public became too harsh and arrogant as compared to the relatively soft image of Synopsys. At the same time his lofty claims about some of Magma’s future products didn’t turn out to be fully true in due course. Gradually people started to dislike the very arrogance and aggression in Rajiv that they had liked few years back. In the mean time very silently and humbly Synopsys came up with a really good product that challenged Magma’s superiority in recent times. Gradually people started to prefer the ‘softer’ Synopsys rather than the ‘hard’ Magma. That was also the time when the global slowdown starting taking its toll and Magma went into a whirlwind downfall.

Let’s turn back to the rise and decline of BJP from just two seats in 1984 to close to 200 in 1999 and down to 120 in 2009.The nineties saw the dramatic rise of BJP who could well understand the pulse of the nation. India had been frustrated with the fifty years of misgovernance, corruption and minority appeasement by the Congress. Indians badly needed some fresh outlook, transparency and a cultural nationalism to pump up the declining global position of India. BJP came up with the right mix of aggression, passion and emotion to destroy a fifty year old dynastic misrule and setup the startup of a successful coalition government in the center for the first time. Almost the entire educated middle class aligned themselves with BJP in the nineties.

But when came the turn of protecting the same government it started losing ground because of the same reason why Magma started failing. The same aggression that brought BJP to power became the negative point. The excessive attack on the older Big Brother Congress was not taken in the right way by the same people who’d voted the Congress out a decade ago in favor of BJP.

Like I hope Rajiv matures as a protector, BJP can also overcome the transition from a destructor/creator to a protector. It’s just a maturing phase that will pass by. The same people who had brought BJP into power in nineties might not be the best candidates to play the role of ‘Protector’. There has to be a change of guards. This shouldn’t be seen as an embarrassment or humiliation for the old timers because their contributions and expertise are not being ignored. It’s only that after Sachin’s innings it’s time for Kishore Kumar to sing. Let Sachin not attempt to be Kishore Kumar. Sachin is Sachin and Kishore Kumar is Kishore Kumar. It’s no embarrassment to Sachin that he is not Kishore Kumar. It’s just not his cup of tea.

Coming back to where I’d started – let’s understand that we not only need a Shiva, but also a Vishnu. That’s what runs a business, and that’s what runs politics!!

HumanSigma Management Approach for Employee & Customer Engagement

I’d written sometime back in one of my blogs that I feel HR is perhaps the most ill-educated and ill-trained department in any company. Any other department recruits only people who have the relevant technical background. For example the finance manager should have had courses in economics and/or chartered accountancy. If he/she had done MBA, then it’s very likely that he/she had finance as the specialization. But how many times did you hear that the HR manager of a company has studied psychology? For example the HR in my previous company did bachelors in zoology or something like that. Well, humans are also animals – so zoology might be a relevant subject….!! It’s really weird that one of the most critical and important positions in a company is held by people without any relevant background and knowledge. Even people, who come to HR with MBA background, are the ones whose scores or ranks in MBA are generally not among the highest because the best guys always opt for finance, marketing, business development and other higher-paying jobs. The result is that very few companies can provide the best of the HR services to their employees.

 

Perhaps the main task of the HR is to make sure that the employees are satisfied. It’s a common sense that satisfied employees would work more efficiently and thus result in better performance of the company. At the same time satisfied and loyal customers are also equally important for a company because at the end of the day the revenue comes from the customers. Though it sounds very simple but still I never came across any survey or theory that links between employee and customer satisfaction all these days. I’ve been sent to so many trainings on various aspects of management but somehow I was not getting exactly what I was looking for. Also I’ve been really getting frustrated with the way most HRs operate. Customer satisfaction is often taken very seriously in most companies, but employee satisfaction is not always taken seriously, even though you would find so many HR policies claiming to do so. It’s well known to all that an employee always ‘quits’ a manager and his/her team, but very rarely the attrition is linked with the performance of the managers. Very few companies even have the policy of taking three sixty degree feedbacks. In most cases managers play a vicious role in causing too much damage to the efficiency of a company, but seldom is he/she held responsible. Most of the HR surveys are too cumbersome and people always get demoralized to fill up forms with hundreds of questions with five options each and then sections to feed in justifications and comments. Even the performance review forms are never crisp. Being an engineer I always felt that HR needs proper engineering way of approaching things. I understand things only when supported by results and fitted to a graph or curve. I believe human behavior is also best understood through mathematics.

 

Not happy with any of HR practices I’ve seen in any of my previous companies, I wanted to venture into this domain myself. After a few days of studies I could come up with some very simple forms which I feel can be used very effectively in HR. Moreover I came across something that I was looking for all the while – a survey linking employee satisfaction with that of the customers. It’s called HumanSigma, researched by Gallup. The concept is based on Employee-Customer Engagement. It says that companies which have engaged employees and customers at the same time are super performers and do much better financially than companies where either the employees or customers are not engaged.

 

I like the ‘term’ engagement very much. It’s really very thoughtful. When a boy and girl get very close to each other, when they are satisfied with each other’s behavior and attitude and when they become committed to each other we say that they are ‘engaged’ to each other. The same applies to a company also. An employee is engaged to a company when there’s an emotional attachment, which comes from various factors. Considering this human aspect in understanding the relationship between a company and its employees is the basis of HumanSigma. This emotional aspect can be extended to customers also. The Human Sigma management approach takes human nature into account and then uses that knowledge to manage and motivate employees, and accelerate their development, as well as to engage customers’ emotions. The central premise of Human Sigma is that emotionally satisfied customers contribute far more to the bottom line than rationally satisfied customers.

 

Gallup has done an extensive survey on 1,976 business units across 10 companies, which had applied the best practices for employee and customer engagement and found that these 10 companies outperformed their 5 biggest peers by 26% in gross margin and 85% in sales growth. Organizations or business units that engage their employees without engaging their customers suffer from being too inwardly focused and have lost their direction. In contrast, organizations or business units that engage their customers without engaging their employees cannot sustain themselves.

 

Gallup has also developed a very simple mechanism to measure the Employee and Customer Engagement based on the scores of a set of well thought and researched questions to be asked to the employees and customers respectively. The HumanSigma or HS of a company is a function of Employee and Customer Engagement Scores.

 

Following is the result of this survey.

Organizations or business units at HS₁ and HS₂ perform significantly below par on employee or customer engagement metrics, and require significant intervention and improvement. Notice the long tails on these two performance bands. This extreme and unbalanced performance on the two metrics is associated with relatively poor financial performance. These two performance bands account for 37 percent of the companies studied. Organizations or business units at HS₃ account for 29 percent of the companies studied and are also frequently out of balance, ranking high on one vital sign but poor on the other.

Organizations at HS₄ are classified as “emerging optimized” performers. They have established balance in the vital signs of the employee-customer encounter, but there are still substantial gains to be made to strengthen these metrics. Organizations at HS₅ and HS₆ are classified as “super” performers. Overall, organizations in HS₄, HS₅ and HS₆ are 3.4 times more effective financially than HS₁, HS₂ and HS₃.

I found the set of questions, used by Gallup to measure Employee and Customer Engagement, very useful and handy to use, in case the company is in service industry. For the first time I came across a survey with only 10-11 questions which are so easy to answer. Based on these Gallup surveys, with a little modification here and there, I’ve come up with a few simple forms which can be used for the following purposes:

1. To measure Employee Engagement: Gallup Standard Q12® survey
2. To measure Customer Engagement: Standard Q11® survey and its derivative
3. To calculate HumanSigma – which can be used as a measure of the overall health of the company
4. To review employee performance: EPR
5. To review performance of managers: Leadership Index (LI)

Each of these questions are to be answered in points between 1 and 5, with 5 meaning strongly agree or very good and 1 meaning strongly disagree or very bad. Scores between 4.5 and 5 correspond to an ‘Ex’ grade. Scores between 4 & 4.5 correspond to an ‘A’ grade. Scores between 3.5 & 4 correspond to a ‘B’ grade and so on.

 

Standard Q12® survey for Employee Engagement

This form should be filled by each employee of the company. Scores above 4.5 would mean that the employee is highly engaged and is very likely to perform very well too.

		Score
Q01	I know what is expected of me at work.	4.6	Accountability
Q02	I have the materials and equipment to do my work right.	4.9	Support
Q03	At work, I have the opportunity to do what I do best every day	4.8	Achievement
Q04	In the last quarter, I have received
	recognition or praise for doing good work.	4.4	Performance Reward
Q05	My supervisor, or someone at work, seems
	to care about me as a person.	4.9	Team
Q06	There is someone at work who encourages my development.	4.9	Development
Q07	At work, my opinions seem to count.	4.9	Alignment
Q08	The mission or purpose of my organization
	makes me feel my job is important.	4.8	Alignment
Q09	My associates or fellow employees are
	committed to doing quality work.	4.8	Commitment
Q10	I have a best friend at work.	4.9	Team
Q11	In the last six months, someone at work
	has talked to me about my progress.	4.9	Performance
Q12	This last year, I have had opportunities to learn and grow.	4.3	Development
	Average	4.8

 

 

Standard Q11® survey for Customer Engagement

 

		Score
Q01	Overall, how satisfied are you with our company?	4.5	Overall Satisfaction
Q02	How likely are you to continue to choose our company?	4.6	Continuing Relationship
Q03	How likely are you to recommend our company to a friend/business acquaintance?	4.9	Recommendation
Q04	"Your company is a name I can always trust"	4.3	Trust
Q05	"Your company always delivers on what they promise"	4.8	Quality & Credibility
Q06	"Your company always treats me fairly/ethically"	4.2	Fairness & Ethics
Q07	"If a problem arises, I can always count on
	your company to reach a fair and  satisfactory resolution"	4.4	Troubleshooting & Competence
Q08	"I feel proud to be a your company's client"	4.5	Association
Q09	"Your company always treats me with respect and professionalism"	4.9	Respect & Professionalism
Q10	"Your company is the perfect service partner for company like ours"	4.4	Alignment & Relevance
Q11	"I can't imagine a service partner without your company"	4.5	Branding
	Average	4.5

 

Ideally this should be filled by the customers. But in many cases, especially when the company provides certain services to its customers, the later might not feel comfortable to answer questions like, “How likely are you to continue to choose our company” or “How likely are you to recommend our company to a friend/business acquaintance”. In such cases it might be wise to frame a different set of outcome oriented questions from the answers of which we should be able to derive the answers of the uncomfortable questions. There are several sites which enlist set of parameters which a customer generally looks for in a service provider. Based on these parameters, it was not hard for me to ‘derive’ a set of questions that would lead us to the Standard Q11® survey for Customer Engagement.

 

The following chart shows how the new set of questions is derived.

 

Q01	Overall, how satisfied are you with our company?	Overall Satisfaction
Q02	How likely are you to continue to choose our company?	Continuing Relationship
	Needs minimum directions/tracking for best output	}Derived Questions
	I have confidence in our company's technical capabilities and skills
	Communicates well with team and managers
	Has very good attitude, inter-personal skills and team spirit
Q03	How likely are you to recommend our company to a friend/business acquaintance?	Recommendation
	I have confidence in our company's technical capabilities and skills	}Derived  Questions
	Is matured, professional and abides by business ethics and norms
	Always delivers correctly on time
Q04	"Your company is a name I can always trust"	Trust
Q05	"Your company always delivers on what they promise"	Quality & Credibility
	Always delivers correctly on time	Derived Questions
Q06	"Your company always treats me fairly/ethically"	Fairness & Ethics
	Is matured, professional and abides by business ethics and norms	Derived Questions
Q07	"If a problem arises, I can always count on your company to reach a fair and satisfactory resolution"	Troubleshooting &
		Competence
Q08	"I feel proud to be your company's client" - No direct question	Association
Q09	"Your always treats me with respect and professionalism"	Respect & Professionalism
	Is matured, professional and abides by business ethics and norms	Derived Questions
Q10	"Your company is the perfect service partner for company like ours"	Alignment & Relevance
	Is the perfect match for the roles considered	Derived Questions
Q11	"I can't imagine a service partner without your company" - No direct question	Branding

 

 

So finally this is the modified set of questions for Customer Engagement – to be filled by the customer.

		Score
Q01	Overall, how satisfied are you with our company's performance?	4.9	Overall Satisfaction
Q02	"Your company is a name I can always trust"	4.8	Trust
Q03	Needs minimum directions/tracking for best output	4.8	Management
Q04	"I have confidence in your company's technical capabilities and skills"	4.9	Knowledge & Confidence
Q05	Always delivers correctly on time	4.7	Quality & Credibility
Q06	Has very good attitude, inter-personal skills and team spirit	4.5	Attitude & Team Spirit
Q07	If a problem/conflict arises, I can always	4.6
	count on your company to reach a proper and satisfactory resolution		Troubleshooting & Competence
Q08	Is matured, professional and abides by business ethics and norms	4.8	Professionalism & Ethics
Q09	Communicates well with team and managers	4.9	Communication
Q10	Is the perfect match for the roles considered	4.4	Alignment & Relevance
	Average	4.7

 

Employee Performance Review (EPR)

 

The above chart is points out the traits and parameters that my customer would like to see in us. If that’s the case hen why not derive our employee’s performance review from this? There are multiple sites that point out so many traits to be measured for performance review. After a deeper look I could actually find out that most of these traits can be finally mapped into Customer Engagement. This is logical because finally the Customer Engagement is a function of the performance of our employees.

 

Following is a very simple form for Employee Performance Review (EPR)

		Score
Q01	Overall, how satisfied are you with the individual's performance	4.5	Overall Satisfaction
Q02	Is very proactive and takes good initiative	4.7	Proactiveness & Initiative
Q03	Needs minimum directions/tracking for best output	4.7	Management
Q04	I have confidence in individual's technical capabilities and relevant skills	4.8	Knowledge & Confidence
Q05	Always delivers correctly on time	4.9	Quality & Credibility
Q06	Has very good attitude, inter-personal skills & team spirit	5	Attitude & Team Spirit
Q07	If a problem arises, I can always count on the individual to reach a proper and	4.5	Troubleshooting &
	satisfactory resolution		Competence
Q08	Is matured, professional and abides by business ethics and norms	4.6	Professionalism & Ethics
Q09	Communicates well with team and managers	4.9	Communication
Q10	Is the perfect match for the role considered	4.7	Alignment & Relevance
Q11	Has the desire to improve quality	4.4	Desire to improve
Q12	Is creative and innovative	4.1	Creativity & Innovation
Q13	Seeks feedback and takes feedback positively	4.6	Seeking feedback
Q14	Is highly committed and passionate about work/company	4.7	Passion & Commitment
	Average	4.7

 

 

Leadership Index

Leadership does play a very important role in Employee Engagement. Also providing the effective leadership is one of the most important tasks of a manager. So I feel it’s important to measure the Leadership Index also. Gallup already has a very simple form for this.

 

		Score
Q01	My manager/supervisor demonstrates competence in his or her job.	4.6	Competence
Q02	My manager/supervisor treats everyone fairly (i.e., plays no favourites).	4.8	Fairness
Q03	My manager/supervisor creates a motivating and supportive work climate.	4.9	Energize
Q04	My manager/supervisor represents my needs,	4.6
	ideas and suggestions to his/her manager.		Open
Q05	My manager/supervisor takes an interest in	4.7
	my professional growth and development.		Develop
Q06	My manager/supervisor involves me in decision making, problem solving and planning	4.7
	processes.		Participative
Q07	My manager/supervisor creates a high performance and collaborative work team.	4.7	Performance
Q08	I have the opportunity to interact with	4.5
	Management above my immediate supervisor		Less Hierarchy
	Average	4.7