Question – Do you feel that the measures taken to implement the corporate values and reorganize work in the financial services center have been appropriate?

Pharmaz India’s office in Bangalore, January 17th 2013, 2.00 PM Amrita and Niels meet to evaluate the process so far Amrita and Niels are seated at the meeting table in Niels’ office. They have been told to expect a visit from Sebastian, the corporate finance director, next week. In preparation, he has asked them to evaluate the last three months’ developments in the center so that they can discuss the progress made, especially as to the implementation of the corporate values, and decide what else needs to be done. Amrita has worked very hard to change the way in which her section works. She suggested in her proposal that new job descriptions would have to be written for everyone, specifying exactly their areas of responsibility and explaining the types of decisions they would be expected to make on their own. Also, each team is to hold a short meeting every morning to inform each other of what they are doing, and everyone is expected to contribute. Other than that, Amrita suggested that as a first step, most of the focus should be concentrated on the team leaders to make sure that they understand what empowerment and knowledge sharing means and that they practice it in their teams. They have all read about the values and attended several presentations of them, so the challenge is the daily practice, not the theory. Therefore, Amrita suggested in her proposal that she should dedicate some days each week to follow a team leader, observe his or her work, and afterwards discuss with him or her how the corporate values can be promoted more. Niels accepted Amrita’s suggestions in these respects and told her to go ahead. This afternoon Amrita tells Niels that she is satisfied with the results. The employees appear to be much happier now that it has been made clearer to them what Pharmaz expects from them. Some still ask their team leaders or Amrita for approval before they make decisions or send their reports to the center’s users, but most do it less frequently now. And all the team leaders try hard to follow Amrita’s new directions. Niels replies that Amrita has done a good job, but adds that when he saw the many pages with job descriptions she has produced he could not help worrying that they are creating more bureaucracy instead of reducing it. Amrita argues that they are necessary: if empowerment is to make sense to her subordinates, they must know exactly what they are empowered to do. Otherwise, it is just an abstract notion. Also, when Niels comes to visit Amrita’s section he has noted that she monitors the team leaders very closely indeed and gives them detailed instructions on how to plan their days and how to delegate tasks to different team members, for instance. To Niels, this close monitoring does not seem like empowerment, and he knows that Sebastian would probably agree. But after six months in Bangalore, Niels begins to feel that it may not be worthwhile insisting on implementing the corporate values in completely the same manner as at headquarters. Maybe different versions of empowerment, equal opportunities and knowledge sharing are possible – and even necessary? He shares these thoughts with Amrita who is clearly pleased that he finally understands this. Niels is not so sure that Sebastian will agree, though. It may not fit his vision of Pharmaz as a global, value-driven company – they will have to discuss it next week. In accordance with Amrita’s suggestion, Niels introduced a more differentiated title structure for the center in late October. He is not personally enthusiastic about it, and he finds that in principle, people ought to pay more attention to the content of their job than to the title it entails. This is also an opinion he has frequently heard expressed by his colleagues at headquarters. But he decided to be pragmatic in this matter. After some months in the center he was already well aware of the local employees’ impatience to advance visibly in the company hierarchy, so he did not doubt that Amrita was right in assuming that new titles would have a motivational effect and probably result in more willingness to take on responsibility. But at the same time, he was wary of creating titles that would be incompatible with the company’s overall global title structure and create misunderstandings in other parts of the organization. Now, the team leaders have been promoted to ‘financial managers’, and the best of the team members have been encouraged to apply for positions as ‘senior financial analysts’. Several local employees, including all the team leaders, have expressed their satisfaction with this decision, and although it is too early to judge the effect for sure, Amrita tells Niels that the team leaders are eager to prove that they have earned their promotions. So Niels believes it was the right thing to do, although some of his colleagues at headquarters have been joking a bit about the apparent inflation in titles in Pharmaz India. Niels was very surprised, however, when he was approached the other day by Pavan Surin, one of the team leaders in Amrita’s section, who suggested that the title structure should be expanded further. He felt that he needed an additional category between ‘financial analyst’ and ‘senior financial analyst’ in order to be able to reward a team member who was very good, but not quite at the ‘senior financial analyst’ level. Frankly, Niels found this slightly ludicrous – how many hierarchical levels are necessary in a team of five people? One for each individual? But since he knows Pavan to be competent and respected by his colleagues, he would like to discuss it with Amrita before dismissing it altogether. And since he has consistently told all his subordinates to feel free to approach him any time with any ideas they might come up with as to how the center’s work can be improved, he thanked Pavan for his suggestion and promised him that he would give it some thought. Amrita is not very pleased that Pavan chose to discuss this directly with Niels instead of taking it up with her first. She knows better than to mention this to Niels, however. She knows that he sets great store by the corporate value of ‘openness in communication between employees at all levels’, and she does not feel like being lectured about it. She hesitates to take a very firm stand regarding Pavan’s suggestion, but as 326 CASE 7 BALANCING VALUES – AN INDIAN PERSPECTIVE ON CORPORATE VALUES FROM SCANDINAVIA she says to Niels, he is probably right that the introduction of an additional step on the career would motivate some team members. In her proposal to Niels, Amrita suggested the introduction of a reward system where employees are rated for their performance by their immediate superiors in order give a bonus prize to the employee with the highest score each quarter. In this matter, Niels did not quite follow her suggestion. He felt that a reward system would indeed be appreciated by the local employees, and he had been told that it is customary in most companies in Bangalore. He worried, however, that Amrita idea would not be conducive to team work. Therefore, he has devised a system where people are not only rated by their superiors for their individual performance, but also by their colleagues for their ability to share knowledge and collaborate. In this way the reward system can serve not just to motivate hard work, but to promote Pharmaz’ values of openness and knowledge sharing, too. The system was introduced recently so no one has received a bonus prize yet. When it was presented he felt it was well received, but Niels is eager to hear Amrita’s opinion on whether or not it has had any impact yet. Amrita tells him that she believes the employees are genuinely happy with the introduction of a bonus prize, something which they had long found to be missing in Pharmaz. But she proceeds to tell him of a problematic recent episode: Balvinder’s team has been given a special assignment by headquarters. It consists in a thorough, critical financial analysis of a business unit in Germany that is experiencing some severe difficulties. The financial report will form part of the basis of the strategic decision as to whether or not to close the unit down. Because of his excellent qualifications, Shankar has been asked to take on the main responsibility for this task, and he has very happily accepted. The problem is that he has become very possessive of this task and discloses next to nothing about it at the team’s daily morning meetings. Balvinder finds – and Amrita agrees – that everyone on the team could learn something about Pharmaz’ business from this important, strategic assignment. Therefore, he asked Shankar last week to involve his colleagues and delegate some of the less complicated tasks involved. This, however, did not happen. When the team leader took it up with Shankar again after some days, he seemed rather annoyed. Amrita, who overheard their conversation as she passed Shankar’s cubicle, was shocked to hear Shankar tell Balvinder that he intends to rate him as poorly as possible – and tell Shivesh [one of his colleagues on the team] to do the same – if he keeps nagging him. Balvinder has not brought the issue up with Amrita, but she would like to do something about it. When she raised the issue during an informal chat with Ganesh this morning, he defended Shankar. He pointed out that he has exceptional qualifications and is very hardworking, so he will be able to do the job better and faster on his own without spending time on involving the others. Amrita had to agree, this is probably true, but somehow she finds it beside the point. Niels says that they have to find a way to deal with the problems in Balvinder’s team, but he needs some time to think about it. Right now, they have to decide what to tell Sebastian about their progress, the issues that remain to be solved and their suggestions for future action.