Personalized People Management in a Large Organization

[Tarun Kumar]

Dear friends,

I am taking the initiative of starting a debate on People Management.
I am going to go extempore over this. So please pardon me, if I stray
in a different direction. Please feel free to comment and send your
valuable thoughts. I hope everyone contributes to the discussion. We
also hope to hear from Prof. Bhargava on this topic.

Personalizing People Management in a Large Organization:

The bigger the organization the more the need to live and work in a
set of rigid structures and standards. The basic human nature is to be
free and away from structures that bind one into think and act in a
certain way, for example, always follow instructions on the dotted
line. But, this generally kills the creative and democratic you.
However, there is no argument against following rules when it is for
welfare and security/safety of everybody.

Compare yourself living in a ground floor of a small self-contained
house versus living in a ground floor of a building of multistory
apartments. How would you feel having the freedom to see a clear sky
and nothing inhibiting that comes in between you and the sunshine
versus, a large structure sitting on top of your head obstructing the
hope of a day of sunshine and beautiful view of the shining stars in
the night. Similarly, compare this with working in a smaller-and-
flatter organization versus a large corporation. The former is the
place where opportunities to learn and grow personally and
professionally are immense. The latter is the place where the Profit
and Scalability decide the both types of growth. This is not to say
that the latter is no good. In fact, this what we are all taught to
achieve in a management courses. Both the roads to growth have their
merits and it is upto the individual to pick one. But which one to
pick, this is where the individual's and organization's dilemma lies
and throws a challenge.

Keeping in view the organizational goals to thrive in business and
attracting as well as retaining the talent, the challenges are to make
an individual feel the freedom and let him/her prosper and achieve the
potential within the objectives of the corporation / organization that
are larger in size. Here, I am avoiding to quantify the large
organization in numbers (Revenue/People/Market Share/Profit, etc.).
Otherwise, it would start another debate.

To achieve such a scenario will be to reach the state of utopia. It is
a difficult goal and to some striving to it may sound idealistic too.
There may be organizations out there who have achieved some sort of
balance in this and are continuously working towards the end goal.

For us in this group as students of the management, the questions is
what strategy should the organization adopt to make it happen. I leave
it to you to contribute your valuable ideas on this and ignite the
thought process. Hope, this first topic turns out to be a meaningful
discussion thread and many more to come. All discussions posts will be
directly reflected on the group's site.

Cheers
Tarun