Section B

PLP 4

Aditya Monga

We had two sessions this week, one on collaboration vs competition and the other on decision making by top management teams. In the first session, we participated in an activity which bore a close resemblance to game theory. The Tit for Tat strategy would have been ideal in this situation however, the one way in which we deviated from this was that we did not collaborate in the initial attempt. My team (and I guess other teams too) assumed that everyone would put up an X and did the same. The only exception was one team which consistently signaled Y in spite of no one else doing the same. While their attempt to get everyone to collaborate were praiseworthy, I felt that it did make sense for them to start handing out X s after their initial attempts were rebuffed. My team mostly followed the tit for tat afterwards, especially after the rounds where communication was allowed. In those rounds, we gave out a Y but when one team still persisted with X, we did the same. Most members of my team felt that this was the correct strategy to apply in this situation try to collaborate (after this had been communicated to the other teams) but if some other team reneges on the agreement then you respond in kind. While this theory works well in game theory kind of situations, the reading indicates that it can cause problems in relationships and could lead to an ever worsening behavior. I did observe something similar once. I was staying in a flat with three of my friends and two of them started developing differences. One of them felt that the other did not do his share of common duties (in this instance it was washing everyone s clothes we used to take turns in doing this) when it affected the first person the most. He responded by doing something similar when the other guy was in need. This situation kept on worsening and in a few months we were in a situation where the two of them would not stay in the same room. This was rather painful for me to watch both of them were good friends of mine and it was sad that events had come to such a head. To some extent, I too made a mistake in not intervening in the beginning itself. Initially, I did not take note of this or consider this to be important. By the time, I realized what was happening, things had gone too far and there was no hope of reconciliation. In the end, we had to part ways. This instance did teach me the importance of taking note of such behavior in the beginning itself and take corrective measures and the reading material does help in reinforcing this. The other material was on collaborative team building which is another important aspect in organizations. This was something that I found really useful and the first thing I did was to try and see if my organization had been following these practices. Thinking it over, I felt that there was sufficient executive support for collaborative behavior. Senior management encouraged collaboration and the general perception was that they collaborated at their level too. This was reinforced by their public behavior the heads of two biggest teams in my division were very friendly and even used to tease each other in public. This helped to create a very friendly and
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Section B

PLP 4

Aditya Monga

supportive atmosphere. Informal mentoring was also encouraged. On my first day, I was told that I was free to ask any question to anyone and this was followed in practice as well. Any question, no matter how silly, was promptly answered. I felt that this created a very healthy atmosphere as our problems and issues were solved by our seniors, we too developed a similar attitude and did the same when the next year s batch joined. In terms of signature practice , it may not have been very unique but my firm practiced a policy of not having any rooms. Everyone from the MD downwards had a similar cube. I felt that this really helped to foster an open culture. I feel that at a psychological level, separate rooms tend to create barriers. Senior managers might follow an open door policy but when they literally have no doors, the effect is much stronger. However we were lacking with regards to HR training programs on collaborative behavior. There wasn t any formal training on these aspects. However, most of the junior members learned by following the lead of seniors. Many senior members were extremely good at resolving conflicts, communication skills etc. and I did learn a lot from observing them. The other HR aspect of group events and activities was present but was limited. I felt that it did help somewhat but with the events being few and far between, the effect was limited. With respect to having the right team leaders, it did vary quite a bit across the organization. I was lucky to have a really good manager he had a very good idea of when to switch between task and relationship approaches. There were several other team leaders like him. However, I did know managers of other teams who were so task oriented that they used to get in the way of employees as well as those who focused so much on relationships that many times their teams had problems regarding clear goals and responsibilities at the beginning of a new project. With regards to team structure, the policy of building on existing relationships was mixed. If possible, existing relations were maintained when new teams were formed, but it was not a priority. On clarity of roles and overall goals to be achieved, it did depend a bit on the team leaders. Good team leaders like mine did define individual roles very well and would then leave the means for achieving the final goal up to us. Overall, on looking back, I felt that there was sufficient initiative taken by the organization to encourage collaborative behavior and we did enjoy the benefits for the most part. However, I do feel that such organizational policies can only help to a certain extent. At the end of the day, a lot depends on the individual person as well. There were people in the organization that had a really high competitive streak. Generally one could still work around that but it would get very tough if such a person was a team lead. I did experience something similar when the team lead for a team on which I was dependent was like this. He was extremely territorial and was only concerned with his team s results, even if it came at the expense of others. It was especially
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Section B

PLP 4

Aditya Monga

difficult to convince him if someone wanted his team to go out of their way occasionally to help out others. I used to get really frustrated at this. To get around this, I ended up developing a strong understanding with the members of his team. Most of them were a lot more understanding and willing to collaborate. Eventually, for any issue with that team, I would bypass the lead and directly talk to the concerned engineers and get things resolved. I m still not sure if this was the right way to go about things but it did get the work done! The final session was on top management teams. While I have personally never had the chance to observe top management teams, this topic did provide valuable lessons for the future. One would expect members coming from different verticals in an organization to have widely varying views. This even came out a little on the class activity. Even though they were only role playing, the finance guy was mostly concerned with numbers, the public relations person was concerned with public image and so on. If this was the case with a simple role play, in case of people having years of experience in one field, the effect would certainly be much stronger. It is really important to be aware of these factors because in a top management team, the stakes are really high. Decisions taken by the top management team have far reaching consequences and any conflicts can be very costly. For the leader, it is important to listen to all viewpoints in a neutral manner and take decisions accordingly. For other members of the top management team, it is important to understand where the other party is coming from and try and use opposing viewpoints to develop a better solution rather than see it as a threat. Interestingly, the reading material also had an example on Texas Instruments which was the company I had worked with. The example was from 20 years ago and I was not aware of it but it was still fascinating to read about how the top management was able to come up with great solution. Hopefully, I ll be able to do the same in the future. At the end of this course, I feel that I have learnt some useful things. The challenge now is to apply this in my daily life and see how things work out.

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