Shyamal Majumdar: The 'owls and the rats' in PSUs

THE HUMAN FACTOR

In his fascinating book, In the Wonderland of Indian Managers, Sharu Rangnekar has given valuable tips on how to avoid taking decisions.

Talking about the decision-making culture in Indian organisations, Rangnekar says "the first step in taking a decision is to determine whether we should avoid the decision by ourselves or pass the buck."

Though his book is targeted at all Indian managers, public sector executives must have made it a must-read.

Consider the lessons: the most popular method of passing the buck is to appoint a committee to review the problem. And to effectively ensure avoiding a decision, a "wise" manager will doubly ensure the result by taking the following measures:

* Make the committee as large as possible: the possibility of avoiding a decision increases in proportion to the square of the number of members in the committee.

* Make the committee meeting difficult: this can be ensured by appointing a sick chairman, or members geographically as distant as possible.

* Make the committee incompatible: at least two members should have a previous record of proved hostility or at least a dominating attitude.

* No-man method: at least one person in the committee must have an infinite capacity to say "no" to everything others propose.

* Bottomless Joe method: In the absence of the "no-man," the committee should have at least one person who has the exceptional quality that any matter referred to him is guaranteed to get lost. He cannot or will not complete any job that is assigned to him.

If all this sounds familiar in India's public sector enterprises, listen to N Vittal, former Chief Vigilance Commissioner, and the man responsible for the scrapping of 696 of the 892 guidelines governing public sector employees when he was chairman of the Public Enterprises Selection Board.

Vittal is quite fond of recounting this favourite story of his: there was a rat that was being harassed by a cat. It went to the owl, the wise bird, to get an idea about how to tackle the cat problem.

The owl thought for a while and ponderously said "To tackle the cat problem, you must also become a cat. Once you become a cat, there will be no problem. You are suffering today because you are weak and the cat is strong."

The solution sounded right. So the rat went back to the owl the next day and asked how it could become a cat. The owl replied: "Look, giving policy directions is my job, implementation is your problem!"

An HR consultant, who has advised a couple of PSUs on their human resource practices, says the story sums up the plight of the public sector managers.

The "owl and the rat" syndrome gives rise to organisational problems that are a recipe for professional demoralisation. The motivated manager risks becoming de-motivated, robbed of the incentive to take action and be held accountable for the proposed results, the consultant says.

The problem, according to him, starts from the top. The men at the helm of public sector units are often unclear about the company's direction because they keep waiting for more information to come in.

While making a well-informed decision is important, the chairmen often wait so long that the company drifts without any substantial improvement for months or even years.

Also, if anybody wants an example of how service rules can be designed to ensure mediocrity and kill the motivation for taking decisions, consider the following sample from officers' service regulations of a top public sector bank.

* If an officer is serving in a project area falling in Group A (all major metros), he would be entitled to a project area compensatory allowance at the rate of Rs 50 a month.

* If an officer is transferred from one place to another in the midst of an academic year and if he has children studying in school or college in the former place, he would be entitled to a mid-academic year transfer allowance of Rs 200 a month, that too only till the end of that academic year.

* Officers from Grade 1 to Grade III (senior managers) can stay only in non-AC rooms while on outstation duty.

The conduct regulations are even more outlandish. For instance, on occasions such as marriages, anniversaries and so on, an officer "can accept gifts from his near relatives and friends. But he has to immediately inform the bank management if the value of the gifts exceeds Rs 500 and Rs 200, respectively."

With "progressive service terms" like this, it's no surprise that the owls and the rats are having a field day in India's public sector.