Episode 4: The Platform Can’t Outrun Its Culture

Yeah, I think, Salil sir, this is a very, very important question.

And when you talked about the screening checklist, I think one of the most important screening checklists is to understand the culture of the organization that you're potentially interested in.

Now, culture is something that's invisible, right? So you need the insight to really get deep into the kind of culture and look at the potential implications of this culture in terms of seeing how well aligned it is matched to your value systems and to your culture or whether it's really mismatched.

So we've had numerous examples even in a pharma industry of large acquisitions with a new culture actually getting into the system.

And then you realize that you require a lot of time to set right the cultural mismatch.

And in the period that it takes to set right and do the firefighting, you have actually lost the ground for building value in that initial stage because most of your efforts and most of your time has actually gone in terms of firefighting over things that could have been better handled to a proper due diligence in the past and therefore taking course corrections proactively rather than realizing it once it is integrated into your system.

And that's a shock that it can bring you.

So here you are investing very heavily or you're taking smart buys like these subscale assets But the point here is that if the cultures don't match, it's going to be to the detriment.

And therefore, the value creation bridge that I talked about, that can have a severe and very serious impediment to the kind of value that it can create just because of this power of intangible.

So basically, when you're talking of the culture over here and building in leadership, I think it's very important critically, first of all, to quote Jim Collins, you really need to have the right people on the bus and the right people off the bus.

So I'm being pretty brutal out here because as we said right in the beginning you know the people with the right mindset the people with the right attitude the people with the right skill sets and the right capabilities is what can help augment the entire process of value creation because whenever you know people come into a new house There is always a kind of guarded skepticism that, you know, this is the new mantra or this is the new diktat, which I'm not used to earlier.

And then there could be inherent resistance and there could be disillusionment and disengagement.

It could lead to attrition.

And therefore, you know, all those strategies that you had in your mind, you know, they hit a roadblock because then you've got to address these issues.

So it is very, very important here for the leadership, first of all, to have the right people on the bus and the wrong people of it and create an environment, you know, where it is very, very clearly mandated that what gets recognized at the end of the day is performance.

and the results that you bring in into your respective functions.

So are my KRAs really aligned to the larger organizational goals and the larger organization visions is we need to understand so that there is no really mismatch or there's no real dilution.

And then the new vision that is getting incorporated, it is important for managers and leaders.

When I talk about managers and leaders, I'm not looking at the CEO or the founder, but I'm looking at functional leaders, functional managers down the line.

It is your job to make sure that your people are aligned to the goals.

And there is a clear-cut recognition of performance and achievement that drives your behavior and drives your operations and standing firm to the values that you have in your organization.

So how are you really adhering to your value system? So most often we find that values are very good to talk as a footer in your email or putting nice posters around the walls of your organization.

But beyond that, do you have a system in place or do you have a process in place where conversations actually center, I'm not talking of appraisal conversation, I'm talking of regular manager employee conversations.

Do they really focus on adherence to value systems and who's really championing the cause of these value systems in the company today? So that is where the adherence to the value system can actually be seen in practice.

And value is a very, very critical driver of your overall culture in your organization.