People and Process

Many a times in my career i have seen the struggle between the process and the people. People do not like the process if it does not suit their way of working/style, but want it when they get stuck or in a mess. It's tough to make and implement a process, and most of the people/organizations make the mistake of picking up something from another organization and try to implement the same. This mostly ends up in failure and frustration as all organization culture and people are different.

Generally the people in India seem to hate processes, partly because of our experience with the government/social infrastructure where everything is denied to the common man in the name of some process that takes years and never bears any results.

Every process needs to define exceptions, but should not necessarily try and cater to every exception. That only ends up making it more complicated and hard to follow/implement. I have seen most of the failures happening when people try to make a fool proof process and ultimately end up confusing others and themselves.

Process need not be above people. Process should be for the people. But process is more important than an individual, it might be fine to loose a good person who is not willing to follow the process for the sake of maintaining the sanity in the system. Process implementation is generally painful for the people who develop a huge inertia. The inertia may be because of mindset or long time being in the same state. The process benefits may not be immediate but come in a longer time frame. However its always important to measure a process for the desired benefits and keep on tweaking it.

Comments

Manendra said…
People normally go with 1 of the 3 options when it comes to Process -
i. Avoid what they think is a problem (for however long they can)
ii. Strongly believe that current Process is not correct
iii. Exploit the loop holes in process for individual benefits

This starts at individual level and spreads across

People should first Accept the Process(3), Perform with it(4) and then Change it for better(5).

Popular posts from this blog

Difference between a Brahmin and a Pandit?

Difference between role and designation

Role and Designation