The Ekalavya Column - Dec '11

‘Finding good manpower is such a big problem’

Heard that one? Ask what is meant by ‘good manpower’, and the answer you’ll get is : ‘qualified people’. Not ‘quality people’ mind you, but ‘qualified people’

 

So why do we want ‘qualified people’? In the belief that those with academic credentials, industry experience and domain knowledge can guarantee results? And that’s why, while interviewing a prospective employee, we focus only on gauging what he already knows about the job we are planning to recruit him for

So let’s deal with this profile : has had a total of 3 months of official schooling ( his teacher called him ‘addled’), been with hearing problems from an early age, sold candy and newspaper on trains as a child, supplemented his income by selling vegetables, and finally, the seventh and last child of a father who was a runaway because of his participating in an unsuccessful rebellion

Wouldn’t even give his resume a second look, correct? That’s good. Recruiting the fourth most prolific patent holder in the history of mankind : 1093, to be precise, including the motion picture camera, the phonograph and the electric light bulb, would have been a disservice to humanity. Besides, being recruited might have stopped him from founding General Electric. Glad that Thomas Alva Edison would have been rejected by accepted parameters

It’s not new, - it’s always been so. Our mythology talks of Dronacharya rejecting the request of Ekalavya to be accepted as his pupil. The compelling reason : his caste. In the eyes of the guru, this tribal upstart must have been way out of line here

But suppose, the guru had taken a harder look at this lowly-born? Looked at his dedication, his eagerness to learn, his humility, his determination, his ability to overcome, to make do with near non-existent resources? Would he still have rejected the one acknowledged the most skillful archer in the Mahabharata? An inspiration, so much so that no one names a learning initiative after the archer-hero of the epic : Arjuna, while institutions named after Ekalavya are proliferate?

Since the time we were founded on the belief : ‘Talent is universal, opportunity is not’, we at Transforma have sought to justify our singular mission : ‘To make opportunity a little more universal’. The big story lies not in our mission, but in the way we define talent, - not by the academic credentials or industry familiarity or domain knowledge but in the values and beliefs that define an individual. Not in the upper part of the Transforma Tree that we deploy as a metaphor, but in the truly relevant bit : the part below the soil, that part that cannot be changed

So while assessing manpower : whether existing employees or potential new recruits, we look out for those components that truly matter. Because what the individual already knows can be valuable today, but then, the environment changes, doesn’t it? And the knowledge that is so invaluable in an individual today becomes irrelevant tomorrow. That’s why we look, not at the existing level of knowledge, but at his ability to replenish, to learn anew

That is why we go past the easily assessable expertise of the ‘ustad’ as a mechanic and look for whether he shares his knowledge with greenhorns. Not whether he can diagnose problems speedily, but his commitment to delivering ‘first-time right’. For regardless of his level of knowledge or experience, if these values are not visible in him, we pay a price for it

So what do we do if we find such an outwardly knowledgeable mechanic with less-than-desirable values within? We build a fresh pipeline : of personnel who sometimes have negligible or near-zero industry experience, but have an eagerness to learn, to share, who take pride in their output. And the outcome : to cite one example, a 86% reduction in repeat repairs

That’s what we mean by true assessment, by looking for genuine talent. It means not being influenced by commonly-held beliefs, - by striking out on a path that we should always have walked down. And when we do so, we reinforce the belief that people with the right values and beliefs are widely available. That they deliver extraordinary improvements in performance, - of a magnitude that defies conventional logic

At the Auto Summit ’12 in Delhi, where Transforma has been invited to deliver a session on ‘Strategic HR’, on January 9 we will be presenting a team from a dealership we have been working with, so that those attending can understand directly from them the path we evangelize, the unstated fears that come in the way of adopting them and the resultant improvements that have been achieved : both the areas, as well as the magnitude of impact

Back to Dronacharya. How many times have we turned away an Ekalavya? If we had overcome the tyranny of ‘qualifications’ : academics, industry experience or knowledge of the function, would those we’d picked up in turn have gone out and spoken of our organizations in a way that more and more of such individuals with the right values would have wanted to join up. And after doing so, would we still be constrained for quality manpower?