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🥪The Sandwich Cadre – A Crucial Bridge for Organizational Transformation🥪
In any organization, particularly where the hierarchies are well defined, the role of middle management becomes very crucial especially when the firm is aiming for a structural renovation as they are the bridge between working levels and top leadership. An organization that brings its employees together by meaningfully engaging them, reaps the fruits of the successful transformation.
Would like to attempt a few pointers for this sandwich cadre to steer the organizational boat in the desired direction and avoid any untoward incident. The various roles of this cadre need to manoeuvre through the rough weather with a compass of calm demeanour:
🚘Shock-absorber: The leadership does the goal setting and evaluates the performance of the team in accordance with the progress in the same and efforts by the team and rewards accordingly. Akin to the shock absorbers cushioning automobiles on bumpy roads by limiting excessive suspensions, the middle managers must dissipate the heat generated in such a situation and ensure that the team performance remains on track. The maturity of the working level officers may not be of the state where the sudden jolts are appreciated. Hence, their sentiments must be dealt with suitably by the line managers operating at the mid-level.
🥅Semi-permeable: It is critical to understand the requirement of the flow of information and its impact on the performance of the team and the firm. The middle managers must traverse the route by passing only those inputs which are extremely necessary for the operations – upward or downward, alike. As we know that the semipermeable membrane allows certain molecules/ ions to pass through it by osmosis process depending on the pressure, concentration, and temperature of the media on either side. The same is the case with the reporting managers of the dealing level officers.
🎫Trustee: There will be times when certain organization secrecy should be maintained. Probably the most important aspect of the duty of this bridge cadre is to become an able trustee of the people it leads. There must be an inviolable rule of no fear or favour in discharging the duties. Also, no gossip or negativity is to be encouraged except for knowingly ensuring adequate venting of emotions and striving to present realistic and balanced views on matters of organizational pursuits.
🎧Polite, yet firm: Organizations need a working structure to sustain, generally. A completely flat organization is a utopia. Dealing with other groups, people, and agencies should be as per the defined procedure. Presenting a true picture and not sweeping issues below the carpet is the hallmark of a transparent organization. The same needs a leader who is polite, yet firm and does not get carried away either side.
anything you would like to add…
📌 What’s in a name – Industry’s Practice of Popular Nomenclature 📌
Recently while flying from Mumbai to Delhi, I overheard a co-passenger referring to his window seat ‘A’ as ‘alpha’ and it took me back in my olden days touring Indian Thermal Power Plants (TPPs). The TPPs have Coal Pulverizers or Mills employed for grinding the coal before firing it into the furnace. Generally, 250 MW TPPs will have 5-6 Mills & >500 MW TPPs have 8-10 Mills – model/ type may change based on Owner’s specification and the design/ offering by the OEM.
The usual nomenclature of installed Coal Mills starts will ‘A’ (lowest elevation) and subsequent alphabets go to ‘B‘ & so on. It is interesting to note that the operator and maintenance personnel give names that are easy to remember and can be easily understood amid the noise and similar pronunciation (B/C/D/E/G). Here is the usual naming philosophy (if I may present so 😊):
A – Agra (city of Taj Mahal)
B – Bombay (city is now Mumbai)
C – Calcutta (city is now Kolkata, some use ‘Chennai’)
D – Delhi (India’s national capital)
E – England (convenient to memorize)
F – Farakka (Faridabad as well)
G – Goa (famous tourist city; also, Ganga, a holy Indian river)
H – Hyderabad (Howrah, too)
One important point not to be missed here is that, when the number of installed Mills increases from 8, we jump to J and K, excluding letter ‘I’ which is probably to avoid confusion due to similarity in small & capital symbols and it is extensively used as a symbol for electric current. However, it is unambiguously known that coding letters ‘I’ & ‘O’ are not used as stipulated by the VGB guidelines. Would like to inform friends that power plants use a standard coding system namely the KKS (Kraftwerk Kennzeichnen System) Identification system defined by VGB (Technische Vereinigung der Grosskraftwerk Betreiber E.V). More on ‘KKS Coding’ will be explained later in another post. Nevertheless, the letters used beyond H, are as below:
J – Jaipur (pink city, or Jammu/Jamuna)
K – Kashmir (land of Sage Kashyap, Kanpur as well)
In the residential complex where we stay, the ten (10) towers are named in a similar fashion skipping ‘I’ and it was extremely difficult for me to explain to my 7-year-old daughter why there is no ‘I’ tower between ‘H’ and ‘J’ towers.
Other industries and even TPPs in other countries/ geographies/ cultures might be following the naming of installed equipments based on their convenient, local, and popular practices. Coming back to the Airline industry, the following is used (gathered in interaction with my fellow passenger):
A – Alpha
B – Bravo
C – Charlie
D – Delta
E – Echo (or Eco, a ‘homophone’ – no specific spelling needed)
F – Fox
So next time, when you come across a similar nomenclature, be a little curious to know the ‘science’ or the ‘art’ behind the same.
anything you would like to modify/ add…
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Project Management: Collaborative, not Adversarial Approach🤝
Managing a project, howsoever simple, or small it may be, needs concerted & coordinated efforts of all the stakeholders concerned. Let us take an example of just engineering management of any package. It involves basic sizing & design philosophy, layout & orientation of the equipments/facilities, drives, controls & instrumentation, etc. envisaged in contract.
Generally, there are 2-3 major parties involved directly: Customer, Contractor, Sub-contractor, and further upstream/ downstream parties depending on the complexity and the requirement of the project. Generally, sub-contractor provided inputs to contractor who arranges customer’s approval & the cycle reverses for manufacturing/ supplies of the components/services.
An ‘adversarial’ approach is where everyone is trying to pass the buck to the other party without any respect for the timelines, quality, and completeness of the process. This leads to heated discussions and many times negatively impacts the performance of project. Any further escalation is not a desirable situation for the people and agencies concerned.
A collaborative approach, my preferred choice, is where each party understands its role as per contract and supports one another to get the task performed as planned. A cordial atmosphere is maintained and discussion, not argument is encouraged. Any deviation in the process can also be taken care of with mutual dialogue and within the ambit of the contract. The collaborative approach, to me, is an example of win-win situation and should be adopted in every scenario. Most of the contracts provide for dispute resolution mechanism and the same can be resorted to if any party is being mistreated and/or contract terms are not being complied with.
The prime importance is to be accorded to outcome of the contractual deliverables – be it, techno-commercial closure, site activity, product supply, service delivery and so on. All the parties concerned should diligently adhere to the project plan. Project management is a team effort & collaboration is the best possible way to achieve the expected goal. Synergy among the parties elevates the performance by taking care of interests of all. This is like the principle of wave theory, where the constructive interference of two identical waves produces a wave with twice the amplitude, but the same wavelength. Prioritizing the deliverables & realizing due payments against the same is amicable when the project runs well. Sound knowledge of the contractual terms & conditions, procedure, coupled with comprehensive understanding of technical/process requirements lead to an ideal situation where project teams on either side focus on ‘deliverables’ and not on ‘squabbles’ in letter & spirit.
Project work is about co-creating a new venture, not settling scores. It is. The test of the teams lies in laying a robust foundation & meet, or better, exceeding expectations of stakeholders involved.
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