Dispensability makes it sustainable
Experience has convinced me about my own dispensability. I have a sense of pride in the fact that I have contributed to it significantly. It also means that I can take things lightly. If you are dispensable in the social setting, it allows you to sit back, enjoy the drama, take a few liberties and have fun, as you are free from the burden of having to live up to expectations.
In an institutional setting, it is organizational competence and not concentrated skill-sets that can ensure scale and sustainability. This is especially difficult to achieve in industries that are driven by people and not by machines such as the services industry. No matter how well defined and articulated processes are, it is almost impossible to achieve perfect standardization - the “production” and “distribution” of a "service" has a considerable human interface.
BPOs in India have successfully addressed this issue by designing well crafted trainings (for example in voice and accent, or in standard operating processes) that make it possible for them to deliver services that are uniform in quality. MFIs have much to learn from BPOs.
If a service involves intellectual processing of problems, the complexity increases manifolds. To take an extreme example, the service that a good CEO provides to her/his firm would virtually be impossible to standardize. No wonder, there is a lot of discussion on how CEOs’ actions, role, compensations etc. impact a host of organizational variables and ultimately firm-value. Successful companies are very effective in delegation of responsibilities. Also, functional boards with independent directors as well as a sound system of independent internal audits help build strong organizations. In effect these measures reduce the discretion a CEO has in taking arbitrary decisions and help reduce the risk that an “indispensable” CEO could expose her/his firm to. This is another imperative for MFIs in India.
It is essential to create dispensability in order to have sustainable outcomes that live beyond an individual. Isn’t it ironical that obituaries are written for an audience!
In an institutional setting, it is organizational competence and not concentrated skill-sets that can ensure scale and sustainability. This is especially difficult to achieve in industries that are driven by people and not by machines such as the services industry. No matter how well defined and articulated processes are, it is almost impossible to achieve perfect standardization - the “production” and “distribution” of a "service" has a considerable human interface.
BPOs in India have successfully addressed this issue by designing well crafted trainings (for example in voice and accent, or in standard operating processes) that make it possible for them to deliver services that are uniform in quality. MFIs have much to learn from BPOs.
If a service involves intellectual processing of problems, the complexity increases manifolds. To take an extreme example, the service that a good CEO provides to her/his firm would virtually be impossible to standardize. No wonder, there is a lot of discussion on how CEOs’ actions, role, compensations etc. impact a host of organizational variables and ultimately firm-value. Successful companies are very effective in delegation of responsibilities. Also, functional boards with independent directors as well as a sound system of independent internal audits help build strong organizations. In effect these measures reduce the discretion a CEO has in taking arbitrary decisions and help reduce the risk that an “indispensable” CEO could expose her/his firm to. This is another imperative for MFIs in India.
It is essential to create dispensability in order to have sustainable outcomes that live beyond an individual. Isn’t it ironical that obituaries are written for an audience!
posted by atul at 11:53 PM
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