Managing: Going To War

MANAGING
Going To War

As the battles for marketshares get bloody, companies are sending their executives out to virtual frontlines for crash courses in commando-like fighting and survival skills.

By Vinod Mahanta with Venkatesha Babu & Abir Pal

There are men swarming all over inside the 'rock fortress'. A young 20-something is balanced precariously on a rope bridge, trying hard to slow its violent swing so that he can cross over to safety. About 50 feet away, another man, slightly older, is on his knees and elbows, trying to crawl through a pipe-tunnel. And at the far end of the training camp, trainers are helping a man dangling from a rope climb the jagged face of a rock. Keeping an eagle-eye on the activities are swarthy instructors with crew-cuts and stiff spines that only years of military discipline can give. Scene out of Afghanistan?

Hardly. The setting is Capt. (retired) S. Ravi's Pegasus Institute for Excellence at Kallukote, 65 kilometres outside Bangalore. And the people honing their rock-climbing and ground-crawling skills are neither army recruits nor wannabe militants. They are warriors nevertheless-the white-collar variety-who've been sent by their employers to acquire skills that will help them fight and win in the recession-ravaged corporate battleground.

Welcome to the new rules of motivating in a downturn. As markets stagnate, bottomlines shrink, layoffs rule, and executive morale hits a new low, corporations are abandoning old methods of motivation (pep talks, rewards, and incentives) and turning to new, revolutionary techniques of building self-confidence, team spirit, goal orientation, and leadership skills. Says Jagdish Kini, CEO of Airtel (Karnataka), who was working on his leadership skills at Kallukote the day BT paid a visit: ''Outward-bound learning like this provides us an opportunity to test our openness, adaptability, introspection, involvement, and lateral-thinking abilities.''

The Dynamic Obstacle Course: It's about teamwork, co-ordination and balance. Much like your corporation

The Tarzan Swing: No Jane here, but if you don't get a good grip, you'll be pulp. Sounds like your next deal?

More Obstacles: Be focused, confident, and committed. Only then will you reach target

Sink Or Swim

Indeed. Throwing a bunch of people into a situation where the life of each depends on the other, helps build trust and team spirit like no classroom workshop can. Agrees Sudeep Banerjee, Chief Executive (Operations), Wipro Technologies: ''The kind of response you get in outdoor brainstorming sessions is simply something else.''

Such physical and mental toughening is becoming increasingly important because, on the one hand, job security is disappearing, and on the other, demands on performance have shot up. At the same time, companies are willing to invest in and reward the super-performers.

It was with this in mind that Coca-Cola India recently sent 25 members of its Pegasus Club-(nothing to do with Ravi's outfit) a club of Coke's top 100 performers-to Leh. The team comprised executives in high-pressure jobs from across Coke's operations in India, and was led by the CEO himself-Alex von Behr. The cola hot-shots spent three days in Leh with their head honcho, discussing business plans, playing management games, and counselling. Says Sunil Kishore, Vice President (hr), Coca-Cola India: ''Activities like this one do a lot of things. But importantly, it puts our top-guns in direct contact with the CEO, and aligns their performance with the vision of the corporation.''

Organisations that are young and culturally diversified also find using non-traditional motivational techniques a quick way of cutting across barriers and building a sense of oneness. Take Hughes Telecom, for example. Early this year, the company sent six batches of 20-22 people each to the Sanjay Gandhi National Park in Borivili, Mumbai. The participants, ranging from the CEO to assistant managers, spent two nights and three days at the park doing everything from pitching tents to rappelling to rafting, besides playing interactive games.

Hughes' rationale for building such well-oiled, in-the-groove, teams is simple. The Rs 200-crore company is barely four years old and has drawn people from as many as 150 different organisations. Its nature of business also requires that its employees have a diverse set of skills ranging from hard-core information technology to networking to customer services to planning to marketing. Says Gautam Chainani, Hughes' Vice President for hr, and one of the participants: ''It really animated issues like problem-solving and decision-making as a group, and helped the participants appreciate each other's style of working.''

Think your executives lack the killer-instinct? No problem. Mumbai-based Khursheed Merchant's specialised management programmes on empowerment, stress management and confidence-building can help. Merchant, who was coached in the UK and has worked in the US and Africa, uses some dare-devil techniques to help people conquer phobias and believe in self. Walking on burning charcoal (fire-walking) and glass shards, for instance.

Sylvester Lobo, Executive Editor of dqChannels India (part of the Delhi-based Cyber Media Group), attended one such workshop conducted by Merchant. His team consisted of 30 senior executives-from MD to regional managers. The objective was to develop a fresh approach to oneself, colleagues, and tackling problems. The tasks included blindfolding a colleague and walking him or her through a busy intersection. ''It's all about trusting in your partner and totally letting go,'' says Lobo.

Ironically, the current downturn is proving to be a good time for companies to embark on such motivational efforts. For one, getting a smaller team to deliver more under adverse circumstances is becoming increasingly critical. For another, surplus man-hours is allowing companies the luxury of pulling its employees off shopfloors and markets, and packing them off to training camps. Says Ravi of Pegasus: ''The experience that people get here is not something they forget once they are back in their offices. In fact, every time they are faced with a seemingly difficult situation, they can tell themselves: ''I've handled worse situations, I can do this.''

Come in, Rambo. Over.

Issue Contents Write to us Subscription Syndication