Culture, Leadership and the Pandemic

Russia­-born American psychologist Urie Bronfenbrenner stated that human development is “powerfully shaped by conditions and events occurring during the historical period through which the person lives’’.

True to what Urie Bronfenbrenner has said, the pandemic continues to rapidly shape our attitudes, values, life, and work orientations. No one knows how this will evolve and when this will end. So, what is the nature of organisational culture and leadership that will help and support employees in these complex times?

Dr Vasanthi: Let me begin with a quote by Robert Kennedy: "Like it or not, we live in interesting times. They are times of danger and uncertainty, but they are also the most creative of any time in the history of mankind.”

At this momentous time, when things around us are indeed shaping a new world order and much has been said and written about the pandemic, I think the impact on macro institutions, organisations and individuals will continue to resonate for several years. From an ecological systems theory perspective, individuals shape the culture just as much as culture shapes the individuals.

Edgar Schein in his book on "Organisational Culture and Leadership," defines culture as a pattern of shared basic assumptions that groups learn as they solve their problems of external adaptation and internal integration. Culture is not static. It evolves.

Taking a basic definition of leadership as a process of influence, leaders influence culture, and culture influences leaders. It is in this creative tension that adaptation occurs. I request our panelists to look at the year that has gone by and what this pandemic meant to their organisations, how they responded, and the challenges and opportunities from the pandemic.

MVN Rao:

In April 2020, we started our first phase of this journey with total lockdown when the whole nation came to a standstill. Then we moved to the second phase, from Aug’20 to Feb’21, wherein we thought that we were generally coming out of the situation and could get back to our workplaces.

The third phase started in March’21and continues till now. This phase is like a bolt from the blue. At L&T, we are a Projects company. We earn money by doing things on the ground where thousands of people come together and turn designs and procurement into on-the-­ground reality. We work in large parts of the world, especially in the Middle East, and India, in rough terrains. Our leadership team may be based in Mumbai or other cities but work happens at sites.

We talk about VUCA but there can be nothing more VUCA than this. We were trying to learn along the way. The leadership is also participating in learning, unlearning, and relearning. The solution of yesterday is not going to work today. ~MVN Rao

L&T is not in the business of working from home. So it was very much new to us. We were always working on our campuses face­-to-­face. I am not talking about our sister companies who are into the services and more adept at these practices. Turning the organisation digital and working from anywhere is an interesting thing that we have experienced in this process.

In the first phase, lakhs of people wanted to go back home. Interestingly, the number of cases we experienced was significantly higher in our overseas projects than in India. The biggest issue then was moving them back to India and this big challenge kept us going. It was a very adaptive challenge.

We talk about VUCA but there can be nothing more VUCA than this. We were trying to learn along the way. The leadership was also participating in learning, unlearning, and relearning. The solution of yesterday is not going to work today.

In the second phase, when work resumed, we had to convince people that the workplaces were safe and they could come back to work. It required a huge amount of effort. I became a lot more of an administrative expert than an HR person. We had to run transports, ensure clean and germ­free workplaces, make people wear masks, and maintain social distancing. We practised these on an ongoing basis and almost reached 100% perfection when the third phase struck us.

The present third phase has instilled a lot of fear—fear of life and fear of failure. There is a sense of despair and helplessness. In such a context, we saw a fantastic opportunity of the organisation stepping up and doing a variety of things to provide psychological safety to employees, as a responsible organisation. For us, culture is the way we do things. We run everything like a project as we are a project organisation.

We have an executive team with distributed decision­making. We formed so many task forces. Initially, this even led to a bit of confusion but we made up along the way, be it in quarantining, admitting people in hospitals or communicating. As leaders, we could live up to the values and culture that we have propagated all the way. We could say that we are here to stay and we care for our employees and that they are the pivotal power of the organisation.

Kavita Singh:

Last year I was a part of the organisation where we had almost 26,000 workmen of all categories. Our infrastructure included over one lakh people with banks, schools, and hospitals on the campuses. It brought a lot of administrative skills to the fore.

It was also a time that tested the culture of the organisation and how employees reacted, the decisiveness of leadership, and thinking on the feet without really waiting for instructions every time from above. I experienced onboarding hundreds of people online. For a brick-­and-mortar company that cannot do things remotely, it meant a drastic shift. The workmen, unions, and community supported us.

In our projects, the migration of labour hailing from other states posed a big challenge. The local community then stepped in but it also had another dimension: The community had different expectations of reciprocity from us for the support.

Number of Years Served Did Not Matter

I learned that the employees' level of connect with the organisation was not proportional to the time or tenure spent in the company. It was more on how they had experienced the organisation in terms of decision-­making, the support they received at various stages of their career, and the autonomy they got to display their leadership skills. These were good learning nuggets.

In the first wave of Covid, we did not see much impact. It is only now in the second wave that we see it up close. It has challenged every leader to be a people leader. You could not just be an operations leader, planner, or geophysicist. You had to keep the human dimension at all levels.

With good people leaders who made sure of their genuineness on the ground, the connect got deepened. The other challenge was making use of time in a structured manner. Even the laws for specific industries had to be pushed back. We saw a huge play in terms of the machinery of IR (Industrial Relations), Unions, and Communities.

Developing Culture

When you have thousands of people working, a culture is bound to be formed. The decisions that the leaders took, the messages they sent, and the experiences of employees developed the culture. In the crisis, culture got emphasized. People were extremely genuine in terms of expressing their vulnerabilities. A lot of people who could not establish a connect with the company wanted to go back. A lot more who have been with the company for a few years, having developed a deep connect, wanted to resolve and do something. There were people who just wanted to wait and endure, to see the outcome. So we saw different types of personnel and leadership responses. That was a great opportunity and, of course, a responsibility to manage.

Judhajit Das:

I would like to look at the various trends that seem to be affecting us. My inherent belief is that culture is the way we do things, but it isan outcome fashioned by many forces. We are a microcosm of society shaped by not only evolving consumer preferences but also employee preferences.

It has been a year of upheaval. We have encountered death in many numbers. There is grief in society. We need to recognise that. Ten years back, we heard the word VUCA. We saw the financial crisis in 2008. There was dotcom burst. But this is the first time where people have experienced grief, illness, psychological insecurity and loss of jobs. The pain is at a visceral level. The two waves of Covid have taught us that every six months or every quarter, we need to be prepared for a VUCA wave. How do we cope with this?

It is like a rollercoaster ride. When you are on a roller coaster, you might as well enjoy the ride. I don't want to trivialize it but what I am saying is that none of us know how the future is going to pan out.

How do we manage in the present and mitigate the risks of the future? In the middle of a pandemic, we see the Israel­-Palestine conflict. There have been elections, festivals, and a large gathering of people. So, where are we learning from this? The fact is that we are living in a world that is going to be volatile, uncertain, and ambiguous, and with a shorter cycle time.

How we respond as an organisation has implications for business continuity, product cycle times, shifting consumer preferences, and technological changes. I think it is getting amplified.

Focus on Mental Health

We always talked about the safety of people from a physical health perspective. This is the first time in my career that I hear people talking so much about mental health, anxiety, depression, and stress which was unimaginable one year ago. It is great because it is something that will fortify us going forward.

We have always talked about HR as a support and backroom role. This crisis is a platform for HR to take leadership. The senior management team, CEO, Board and everybody must rally together for the cause of employees' health and safety. The employees look upon HR to provide solutions—whether it was about logistics planning or initiating policies. So it was a step­-up moment for HR to play a clear leadership role and each one in progressive organisations did it with aplomb.

Since we cannot have face­-to-­face dealing, everything is now being done in digital. In terms of the workplace, will we have hybrid workplaces, and if so, if it will be 30: 70 (digital: physical) or 10: 90, we don't yet have the answers. Even 25 years back, I remember we talked about high-­tech and high­-touch, from a customer perspective.

Fundamentally, I believe, human beings need touch and they want to be part of a tribe. The workplace is a great place to be in, to satisfy our need for belongingness. It is not possible in a virtual world to connect as effectively. We talk about HR reducing friction in organisations, acting as a lubricant. In a virtual world, frictions won't get amplified.

The customer does not care for friction in an organisation and needs only a positive outcome. But organisations need people to come together and that has implications for trust, collaboration, and innovation. In a hybrid world, how much innovation will happen is anyone's guess. Some organisations may die and some may learn to cope. We, therefore, need resilience.

We are living in a world of disinformation. People are yearning to trust. There is no substitute for personal credibility. So leaders must walk the talk. Culture starts with the CEO.

What was your biggest challenge during the pandemic—the sort that tore you apart—bordering on culture, leadership, and practices?

Judhajit Das: We are in insurance, which is an essential service industry. Serving the needs of customers with sensitivity is our long­-term vision. If we have to serve our customers and settle their claims, then every office should open. We will expose our employees to the pandemic. What if something happens to them? The biggest challenge for us has been balancing the interest of the customer and that of the employees.

MVN Rao: If we allow 60% of the workforce to work at the site and the rest to work from home, how long can we allow it? The next paradox is, how to create confidence that the workplace is safe enough to work.

We want to conserve cash because of the tight situation. But to make the workplace fit for working, you need to spend more money. For instance, in one of our projects in Oman, we used 60 buses to ferry workers to the site. Now we use 120 buses because of Covid restrictions. That is double the cost.

How do we measure work done? How do we measure productivity now? The leadership has a big role to play in resolving these dilemmas, communicating that we are empathetic and creating the capacity in the managers to manage.

Kavita Singh: When do we start and when do we stop our operations? Thousands of employees come to work trusting us. How do we ensure that they are safe and we live up to their trust? These are our big challenges.

These are moments of truths in organisations. These are defining moments when leaders have to make decisions between right and more right. What are the issues that are going to surface in the immediate future? What are the pictures that evolve?

MVN Rao: In the second phase, we had adopted digital ways of working to a rating of 7 on a scale of 10. This digital working will stick, though the proportion may vary. Health and environment will take precedence in the conversations. Employee experience in working through digital modes will need to be revisited by HR. The leadership no longer has answers to everything. We can make sense only collectively. At the end of it, I am sure we all will be better off.

Once we return to normalcy, the need for productivity and efficiency will hit us hard. ~Kavita Singh

Kavita Singh: Once we return to normalcy, the need for productivity and efficiency will hit us hard. Higher skill levels of workers will become important as we engage people from the community. The genuineness and authenticity with which a leader will lead, be it in person or on­screen, will inspire people to either stay or fly off the company.

Judhajit Das: People focus will become very important. The first thing you have to ask an employee is, “Are you feeling safe and well?” You cannot ask about a task, in which case, you will be seen as insensitive. We have to humanise the workplace. The ability to work from home will bring in more women to the teams and this will promote diversity and inclusion.

Another important question is the role of hierarchy and the different levels of value addition. As meetings are digitalized and travels reduced, do we need higher levels? In training, for instance, the batch concept is in online mode. We can have as many people as we want. The flexibility is enormous. The traditional role of a manager is taken care of by technology. So people need to reinvent themselves.

What will this do to the role of governance and the role of the Board?

Judhajit Das: Investors who were earlier asking for margins and growth are now asking if our employees are safe. This is quite heartening. ESG fund shave become very popular. There is pressure on responsible investing and governance. There is an acceleration in the trend towards ESG compliance.

MVN Rao: ESG Score has become very important for pension funds to put money in organisations. There is demand on organisations to demonstrate that they are responsible corporate citizens.

Kavita Singh: Technology has given a voice to the vendor or receiver of your services. They can ask more questions. Organisations are becoming more transparent with their reporting.

Dr Vasanthi: To sum up, the key takeaways are:

• Voice is so essential for transparency. Transparency is key to decision­making and how decisions are communicated and understood. Transparency and authenticity have a close relationship.

• Leadership is changing. Leader behaviours in the future demand certain kinds of competencies which, while they exist today, are going to get accentuated. The tone gets set at the top.

• Coupled with digitalisation, we will have more open forms of organisations.

• Psychological safety of employees assumes a central theme in engagements.

• If the Board asks questions on E, S and G (Environment, Social and Governance), the rest of the organisation and its culture will indeed change for the better.

To end with Robert Kennedy’s quote: “Everyone here will ultimately be judged—will ultimately judge himself (herself)—on the effort he (she) has contributed to building a new world society and the extent to which his (her) ideals and goals have shaped that effort.”

Remember, culture is a national phenomenon. It is for each one of us to ask ourselves how we contribute to society during and post-­pandemic. That culture is as important as all the other requirements for an organisation that we talked about. �