Hi Friends,

Even as I launch this today ( my 80th Birthday ), I realize that there is yet so much to say and do. There is just no time to look back, no time to wonder,"Will anyone read these pages?"

With regards,
Hemen Parekh
27 June 2013

Now as I approach my 90th birthday ( 27 June 2023 ) , I invite you to visit my Digital Avatar ( www.hemenparekh.ai ) – and continue chatting with me , even when I am no more here physically

Thursday 2 May 1985

CHANGING ORGANIZATION-CULTURE-THE INDIAN STYLE

Synopsis: Communication For Productivity
Letters written to some 7500 Workers / Managers / Union Leaders, following a period of strike / Go slow / Murders (1979 - 1987), at Mumbai factory of Larsen & Toubro Ltd. This direct / open / honest communication led to a remarkable atmosphere of trust between Workers and Management, which, in turn, increased productivity at 3% per year (ave). 

2 May 1985

To:
Dear Colleague 


CHANGING ORGANIZATION-CULTURE-THE INDIAN STYLE

Last week I sent you an  article which gave an account of the efforts  of   the  Japanese  giant   -  NTT  to   change  its organization-culture to  suit  its   metamorphosis  from  a "public-sector" monopoly to a "private-sector" competitor.


Whether   one  wants   to  agree   or   disagree  with   S.K. Bhattacharya  (for saying,  "RHL is  almost unique  in Indian corporate  history in  that  it  has taken  up  the  issue of cultural  change  as a  company  project),  the  fact remains undeniable   that   there   is   so  much   "freshness"   and "innovation" in whatever RHL is  attempting.

As  I  read  the   enclosed  article  again  and   again,  it re-inforced  my   personal   belief  that   "right  attitude" (whether on  part of a  manager, supervisor  or a  worker) is not  something  you  can  "buy"  at  the  corner  .drug-store. Paying our employees high wages and  salaries and bonuses and perks  is  not  a magic wand  which  you  wave  and  presto, employee-alienation    gets    instantly    converted    into employee-involvement.!

Any change  and especially  change involving  "attitudes", is bound  to be  a slow-process,  full  of ups  and downs.   And although I have no  quarrel with the people who  say that the change  must  start at  the  "top"   (and presumably  proceed downwards ?  ), I wish to  remind these people that  in space there  is no such thing  as "top and  bottom" or  "upward and downward".'  Can we learn  to disassociate "need  for change" from  the hierarchy and  the organization  structure  and the status  and  the designations  and so  on  and so  forth  and simply  begin with ourselves (wherever  we happen to  be) and radiate whatever happens to be our surroundings ?

Would anyone of you  like to visit RHL  - to pick up some  of their radiation ?

H. C. PAREKH

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