Every company strives hard to recruit the right talent and retain the same. Some succeed and some don’t, and there lies all the difference! So, what is “recruiting the right people”? Who defines what is right? And is it actually right?
We want an employee to be knowledgeable, intelligent, emotionally stable and good at communication. We also have a traditional rigorous recruitment procedure to filter out candidates who don’t fulfil the criteria. Having hired the so called best people, companies still face a lot of employee related problems. Patrick Lencioni’s “The five dysfunctions of a team” is a great example to testify the same.
Let’s look into the problem in detail. The root of all dysfunctions in a team, according to him, is the lack of trust amongst the team mates. The team mates have to trust one another and the manager has to trust his team mates and vice versa. Then why is it not happening? If an employee applies for leave very often and produces a medical certificate each time, even the most trusting manager would suspect the employee, even though he is entitled to the benefit of doubt! This happens because the employee is not trustworthy. One cannot trust another unless he is trustworthy. How do we ensure that an employee is trustworthy while hiring him?
Honesty is a necessity for the existence of trust in a team. But people are so accustomed to lying in office because they are afraid. They fear the consequences of speaking the truth. If I am not sick and am badly in need of a leave, and I have only medical leaves left, it is obvious that I will lie. In such context, speaking the truth will have grave consequences. This is induced dishonesty. Induced dishonesty can be solved by modifying the company policies. But what can we do with people who are naturally inclined to lying? Some employees are so adept at lying that the managers cannot spot them. This might lead to conflicts, non-completion of projects on time, decreased efficiency and high costs to the company!
We are so obsessed with the measurable qualities of an employee (IQ and EQ) that we forget to take care of the subjective nature of the person. A person may be highly intelligent and efficient, but will he be of any use to the company if he has the tendency to steal? What will we do with an employee who is very skillful at work but constantly misbehaves? How do we deal with employees who are not punctual? What do we do to the ones who misbehave with women? Are we totally helpless or is there any way to know beforehand the subjective aspects of a candidate before he is hired?
Selecting the right person has always been a big problem to mankind. Let’s now see how our forefathers dealt with the same problem. Choosing the right bride for one’s son is a typical example. The elders in the family would instantly ask for the bride’s horoscope. Let’s not take this in a jingoistic sense, for that was the only means to analyze the subjective nature of the person. Let’s not debate on the accuracy of astrological predictions, but try to understand the way people used it to figure out the subjective aspects of an unknown person. Astrological predictions of future events may be true or false, depending on the skill of the astrologer and the accuracy of the horoscope. But deductions regarding a person’s character can be very well construed with a horoscope. Whether a person is short tempered or calm, active or lazy, fickle minded or stable, such things can easily be found out within a few seconds.
And we have not only astrology, but also palmology and numerology- all of them extremely useful in determining the subjective aspects of a person. The modern recruitment methods totally ignore the subjective aspect of a person, and we have been conditioned to think that this is the only method to select people! But it isn’t!! Modern science now approves of yoga, but it still calls Ayurveda as pseudo-science. But aren’t people getting cured of diseases with Ayurvedic drugs? We should not be driven by what modern science approves of and what it doesn’t, but what gives the result should drive us. The end shall justify the means. And the need of the 21st century is the blend of the two cultures- of the East and the West. Technology from the West and Spirituality from the East. Some modernity from the West, some antiquity from the East. Objective methods of the West and Subjective methods of the East. With such a confluence of the eastern and western principles of management, we shall herald the golden era of harmonious corporate management!
The Cowherd 