The Pointy End of Performance: Learning Agility from the Indian Army
In this episode, Deepak and Sujatha speak to Lt. General A. Arun on what makes the Indian army autonomous, adaptable and agile on the ground, even though the army can be bureaucratic with very clear common and controls. We discover a systematic way of building camaraderie, bonding and team spirit amongst the soldiers, the efficacy of different leadership styles and the difference between leadership and management.
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About Lt.Gen. Arun, Yudh Seva Medal, Sena Medal, Vishisht Seva Medal
Pic: General Arun
Lieutenant General Ananthanarayan Arun, YSM, SM, VSM serves as the Chief of Staff of the South Western Command, Jaipur. He previously served as the General Officer Commanding Dakshin Bharat Area, prior to which he served as the Director General, Strategic Planning at the Army HQ.
Lt. General A. Arun had joined the National Defence Academy in Jan 1982, opting not to join the IIT, despite an all India rank of 13. He was commissioned into 8 GRENADIERS on 14 December 1985.He is a graduate of the Defence Services Staff College (Wellington - India), Centre for Defence & Strategic Studies, Canberra, Australia and National Defence College (New Delhi).
He is passionate about personality development, leadership development and public speaking. He loves writing short stories, listening to music and spending time with family and pets.
He enjoys listening to music, spending time with the family and pets and public speaking and writing short stories.
Resources
Book: Team of Teams: New Rules of Engagement for a Complex World" by General Stanley McChrystal
Book: When Giants Learn to Dance, Rosabeth Moss Kanter
Book: Who says Elephants can’t dance, Louis Gerstner
Kellog Insight Article What Does It Take to Foster a “Culture of Responsibility” like the U.S. Army’s?,
Forbes Article How the Navy created a culture of innovation in Big Bureaucracy,
Book: Thinking Fast & Slow, Daniel Kahneman
Transcript
Sowmya 00:05
Hello everyone and welcome back to Season Two of the WorkWise Pod. The Indian Army, for its largeness, is exceptionally agile, autonomous and adaptable on the battlefield. In today's episode of The workwise pod, Deepak and Sujatha speak to Lieutenant General A Arun, as they unpack how the Indian Army manages to achieve both scale and agility at the same time. General A Arun is currently posted as General Officer Commanding Dakshin Bharath Area before which he served as the Director General Strategic planning at the army headquarters. Stay tuned.
Sujatha Rao 00:47
Can elephants dance? In 1990, Elisabeth Moss Kanter came out with this book when giants learned to dance, talking about the ability of large organizations to also be adaptable and quick in response to their environment. Louie Gerstner, who was brought in to run IBM in the 1990s wrote the book, who says elephants can't dance, talking about the remarkable turnaround that IBM had in the 90s and their ability to manage change. So how do giants and elephants learn to dance? How do they become attuned to the performance that is needed from them at the right time in the right way? And what better example to learn from than from the Indian Army. The Indian Army is one of the largest organizations in the world, and they are deployed to do some of the hardest tasks around the world. And it appears that the army is bureaucratic with very clear command and controls in place. But we also know that armies on the ground are autonomous, adaptable and agile. So, this appears oxymoronic that simultaneously you can be both rigid and flexible. How is this? How does this happen? So, to help us unpack this and see how giants can dance, we have with us Lieutenant General A Arun ,welcome to the Workwise Pod. Thank you. Very basic question to get us started. Could you give us a sense of the size and scale of the Indian army and a very sort of fundamental sense of how it's organized
General Arun 02:36
okay. The army is part of the larger uniformed structure which are the armed forces, there is the Air Force and the Navy. And as their names and roles suggest, everybody does a different job. But the land army is amongst the largest standing armies in the world we deployed across every inch of India's landmass. There is significant deployment overseas ,roles vary from providing succer to the needy during a calamity to maintenance of law and order in case of a riot, helping the civil administration in constructing buildings, making roads, creating a bridge, doing flood relief, policing even at times, and of course, protecting the territorial integrity of the country. Now, through all this there is this thread of manpower or woman power or people power which flows right through which encompasses the entire spectrum of HR related issues from recruitment to retirement, inclusive of training and deployment. And then there are it's so large, it's over 1.31 million large. So, there are individual needs which have to be addressed. There are operational requirements which have to focus on there are international deployments, there is diplomatic issues, which have to be handled, it is probably next to the human body, the most complex organism that exists
Deepak Menon 04:15
General Arun taking off from Sujatha's introduction, how is the army so flexible when the need arises? Outside of the Army, we hear stories of vailor, bravery, and adaptability. But also, many of us have this perception that the army is also very bureaucratic and has very strong command and controlling controls in place. But I'm really intrigued about the performance that happens when there is a crisis. It seems very, very inspiring. So how does that happen?
General Arun 04:50
So inspiring, certainly. It seems like a mystery to most people who view it from the outside. It's like a structure, which is one structure, but somewhere down the middle, they start performing differently. So like Sujatha said at the front end, at the pointed end of the spear, as it were, it is probably amongst the most flexible, agile, adaptable, elite organizations that exist, you know, those of us on the front end of the armed forces of the army is really the component that fights. Now at the fighting end, history has taught us that the most effective component is a small team. There are many definitions of a small team, but that is, in many words, the pointed end of the Army's spear. At that end, you will struggle to find in any other organization in the world, something that is as light, agile, flexible and adaptable. So as it grows in size, and comes down to the highest headquarters or the corporate office, if you work, is when the size of the organization is directly proportional to its rigidity. So the higher the level at which a decision is made, the more rigid and bureaucratic it becomes. Now, this is also the nature of the human mind. What I've said is, is not so much typical only of the armed forces, it is true of any large company that is governed the front end salesman of let's say coke has to employ all the dexterity as his or her command, to be able to sell that bottle of coke to that poor lady who's got a store at the top of the mountain who cannot pay him today. But when you probably drift upwards down to maybe their headquarters in Atlanta or wherever it is, he would feel that my organization is very bureaucratic. So that's the nature of the beast. But it's quite typical of the armed forces. And the reasons are not far to fathom. At the pointed end, there is no encumbrance of process. The decision making loop is what is between the years. So it is just for people doing what they can do with the resources they have on their back. And that's the end of the story. There is no consultation, there is no requirement of guidance, nobody is there to give them guidance, there is no advice required. So that team has got a task. It's got a resource assigned, it's got a deliverable, which is expected to produce within a set of rules. And these are what make an organization flexible, any organization and that is taught to all of us from the day we join the armed forces.
Deepak Menon 07:41
Fascinating that's quite a bit to unpack, we will slowly start unpacking each of the items that you said, the small team as a unit is what gets focused upon. Now we have corporate examples, but they only also give the example of coke, but they are nowhere close to the performance that the army produces. No. So what is different about the pointy end in the army, because of some of the things that you mentioned about freedom, agility, adaptability, all those things exist even in other organizations but there's something about the army that I find is different and spectacular compared to what you see organizations around.
General Arun 08:24
So the difference is the price of failure Deepak, in any other job I dare say that you would find similar rates of success even in surgical teams of good hospitals, because there also the price of failure is death. In a hospital, it might seem a little impersonal, because the surgical team may not necessarily know the human being on whom they are operating, he or she may be a person with an ailment or a predicament which needs to be cured. With us it's about the bonding. Now, this is an intangible component. And this comes from a variety of actions which are undertaken. Some of them might seem common, in fact, they might seem mundane, because they happen as a matter of course, it's what we call as drills, their SOPs, if you wish, but some of them need to be painstakingly built upon. And then this is why whenever I speak to people, I encourage large corporations to employ two categories of people. And I do not know if they exist in many companies. The first is a storyteller, a storyteller with a designation called storyteller. The second is a go to person or go to person as in a go to person who may resolve that sticky pad not working, who may resolve a marital discord issue, who may resolve that Chai in the cafeteria not working well, who may resolve a conflict between two senior vice presidents. Just a friendly guy about the campus, probably a friendly lady, I think these two will deliver great. Now what happens in an army unit is typically, all of us do these roles by default, it's part of our fabric. First thing is every person in the Army is taught to think and behave like a leader. It's very confusing at times, even to somebody like me who's spent 40 years in the Army, when I'm alone, or with my team, who are my team, then I'm the leader, the moment there is somebody else in the block, or in the building who's a little senior to me, that person becomes the leader. And I then consult, so that's how it works. And this is an automatic process. Now, as far as the four people and the pointed end is concerned, there are more than just four colleagues working together. This is about genuine camaraderie. This is about a willingness to lay their own lives on the line to protect the other person's life. The second equally large intangible factor is the feeling which these four people will have for the larger unit or formation that they belong to. So for example, you see this Golden Palm behind me on the flag, it's worn by every army, jawaan, officer, soldier on their arm as part of a uniform, it's called a formation sign. While we may bleed for the tricolor or the national flag, we also bleed for our formation. The name of the formation is paramount, in Hindi, it's called Naam Namak Nishan, Naam is fame of my regiment, Namak is what I eat and the assault of I will be loyal to that and Nishan is a flag that's the symbol of my unit and I will do everything I can to keep the flag flying high. Now, this may seem like intangible gobbledygook, but when it is thought, imbibed and lived day in and day out, it results in these largely intangible performances, which cannot be captured or quantified, they can only be felt. So this is a constant process in the armed forces in general.
Sujatha Rao 12:26
This intangible that you were talking about the rituals, the stories, the narratives, the routines, the drills that hold these, the pointy end team together, while simultaneously attaching them to the larger organization is something that almost all organizations struggle with and it's one of the most difficult aspects of culture building that organizations talk about. So if we drill this down a little bit, would you be able to give us a couple of specific examples of what these drills or these routines look like? Some examples of that organizations can begin to think about which may seem ritualistic but actually have tremendous purpose behind them.
General Arun 13:16
2021 has a special significance for India and the armed forces. It's the Golden Jubilee Year of a war with Pakistan and I dare say a very large successful war, it was a war which was not launched for any expansionist ambitions, it was not launched to capture territory, this was a war or you could call it a moral war also, it was a war launched, fought to give birth to a new nation. Bangladesh was born as a consequence of this war. On the 22nd of July, we had a even if I say, so my certain outstanding function in Chennai, wherein the honorable governor was the chief guest and we felicitated those who participated in the war, some of whom had passed away in martyrs, so their families or children came by, some of them are fairly senior, some of them in reasonably good health, but the person I'm going to speak about is a naval officer, and I have his daughter's permission to speak about him not for this session, but in a generic sense .He was 94, on that day, very ailing, hadn't stepped out of home for three years. So we had to create a little medical infrastructure at the venue because I wanted him to come with an oxygen tank and medical specialist, a pulmonologist actually on standby, he was brought in a wheelchair and the governor felicitated and he went back so the old man can barely speak. He can barely lift up his hand or limbs, he is restricted to a bed or a wheelchair. This is what she writes to me and I'll read it out verbatim from my phone. Dear general Arun, greetings, words failed to express our gratitude to you and your colleagues for felicitating my father on the 22nd of July by the honorable governor of Chennai, to commemorate 50 years of the 1971 War. My father has won many accolades in his life, but this function will remain our most memorable one. For my father to arrive at your venue, in a wheelchair and to have overcome many other health hurdles to attend your function was no mean feat. This is only possible because of the incredible support you provided us in the form of a mobile ICU, an ambulance, doctors and other staff. Special thanks to she mentioned three people....because of this meticulous preparation, we were confident to attend this event with my ailing 94 year old father, to be celebrated for his courage, bravery and achievement displayed 50 years ago, and to feel so cherished at the tail end of his life, made him and us feel very happy and special. At the end of the evening, when your doctors and your staff accompanied him back home, informed them that it was the best evening of his life and gave them a farewell salute. What more could we ask for immense gratitude to you and your remarkable team of colleagues who took such great care of all of us that evening, our best wishes.A week later I get another message from her and she says Good Morning, General Arun my dad's health turned worse this weekend and he passed away peacefully at the hospital this morning at 6:17 am. While we are sad to lose him, we cherish beautiful memories of his illustrious brave career and long life. We are so happy that he could attend your great grand function, which was in hindsight, a fitting farewell to a Braveheart and a fine gentleman.Jai Hind . Did I know Commodore Gopal Rao? As a person? No. What did he do? He was instrumental in our operations in the west towards Pakistan. For his heroism he was awarded the Mojave chakra in 1971. His actions were on the fourth of December, which to this day is celebrated as Navy Day in India. That's the men 50 years did we need to celebrate? Did we need to recount his story to all those who chose to listen. So I've carried his story. These stories are the summit of the fabric. You can weave a fabric with fiber and that's how it is normally done. But if you want to cement that fabric, you need these stories. You need young people to know what went into creating the edifice that they work in today, offices are not made of steel and chrome and glass and concrete. Whether it's an IT company, or whether it's a hospitality industry, companies are made up of people. If people work for the company, the company will succeed so this is one example. The other example is very typically it's again at the point it did end, every officer who joins the Indian Army, we'll learn one more language after he or she joins. And that is the language which the troops speak. So when you're speaking to a Maharashtrian soldier, you will tend to have the ability to converse with him or her in Marathi. So does that increase bonding? Yes, it does. When there is a connection between the senior hierarchy and the lead and the Connect is constant, it's continuous and it is without an intent to be intrusive. When it is genuine, then the fabric starts cementing itself. Through this process, of course, the storytelling is important. The constant Connect is important. Care is important. You cannot just be human beings. You are a human being with a family outside of work.
Sujatha Rao 19:28
I think what you're talking about is this is not a one off thing that you do once in six months where you say this is a bonding exercise. It is what happens in the everyday life of every soldier, commanding officer, and staff in the army on a daily basis that makes this come alive. And I think that the stories I mean touched me deeply but the fabric of the stories cement the everyday routines and rituals, right. So if they don't talk to each other, if the routine is something and the story is something else, I think it will stand out as being fake, not authentic, not believable.
General Arun 20:16
The first rule is honesty of purpose, you cannot fake honesty, you can't build it on every Founders Day or racing day or company day or whatever it is. It's a constant everyday process. It must be sincere. Therefore, sometimes it becomes difficult to ask a person how you are. Because when you ask the person how you are, you have to allow that person to criticize what you're doing. So, the ability to and this might seem contrary to the listeners, or the viewers image of the armed forces, there is a great deal of conversation that happens within the hierarchy of the armed forces. Now, while their hierarchy may not border on, you know, a robust argument or a dissent event within a conference hall or on a whiteboard, there is conversation, there are outstanding channels of feedback. So there are institutionalized measures, and not one, not two, there are multiple. So if one doesn't work, something else will work. So we have actually moved on from just, honesty of purpose in articulating the message to multiple channels of feedback for a receipt of how that message has gone down. So sometimes, your message may have got corrupted in the manner of each delivery, or in the medium that was chosen to deliver it. Sometimes there may be an element of hypocrisy. Social connections are not just happy hours on a Friday afternoon, social connections have to go way beyond that, which means that you're within the small teams, your problems have to be mine, you're struggling wit, your moms or dads ill health, it should pay me as much. And I should accommodate your needs when you need to be away from work or ABC, which means you do the heavy lifting for somebody. And that is how teams get built. So the army structures, of course, they're institutionalized, but it requires the human being to run those institutions. So even in the army, if we don't do it with an honesty of purpose, and it does happen in many places, we need course corrections. That is why constantly we are traveling, meeting our teams, speaking to them, informal conversations, formal ones, this helps a great deal. If you don't do that Sujatha, then definitely we're in danger of going down the route, which you said, one could.
Deepak Menon 22:58
You also mentioned training a couple of times. But one is I can understand the immersive nature of learning. But how do you formalize this for a young cadet? Or a young officer? How do you institutionalize this training and what is a continuous training that is provided by the army?
General Arun 23:17
So there is a formal teaching, wherein How to Build Team Spirit or how our new inductee becomes part of the fabric. So there's a formal teaching procedure where the history of the unit and the regiment and the stories of what people did in the past and what is expected of you and what your forefathers have done, and so on and so forth, is told to that person, then the person sees them happening. So he will see his young officer saying, you know, this evening, we have to go to the hospital because that guy who was playing football yesterday broke his leg, so you come with me. They'll typically make something with the guy who probably likes to eat, a bunch of flowers, a card, maybe whatever, just to spend some time in the hospital with that guy. It isn't that he's gone to the hospital so we'll forget him till he comes back. Now, this is an informal one. But there is a formal one. There is a duty officer of the week, who has a form to fill. So amongst his things is also, you know, I visited the military hospital and I spoke to ABCDE and these are what they had to say. So this form goes all the way up, and it's acted upon till it meets the head of the institution, a small institution, but at every level the organization has its own team. So it cannot be the CEO who's looking after 40,000 People looking at every form, but there are so many people reporting to him down the line, everybody does their bit down to that small team which I spoke about. So there is an institutional one, there is a one which if seen and learned now the ceremony that we did in Chennai was not an institutionalized one. We were not mandated to do it. We did it because I wanted to honor those veterans. I wanted to tell the story of the 71 War to as many people in Chennai as possible. I wanted young kids to know what actually those veterans went through and this was an opportunity for them to share their stories. So those fireside chats, which we talked about, are now common. And those stories spread. Young children know somebody will have an interest, this is one form of creating a fabric, is it also contributing to national integration? Yes, it is, from within a company, if you were to have a coloured a purely selfish motive of strengthening the fabric of the company, that's fine. That's just being professional. But in two parts, there has to clearly be an institutionalized formal teaching or learning or awareness programme and there has to be an informal one. Informal one can be anything. I mean, it really can be anything. The Friday afternoon happy hours can also be an informal bonding. As long as bonding is the aim and not the beverage.
Sujatha Rao 26:03
I wanted to ask you this question about the pointed end of the army and the agility and the flexibility that we've been talking about. This nature of leadership in the army that enables that pointing to work like that, there is so much of walking the talk in the army, right? So if I'm, you know, and I'm commanding a small unit, when I ask my team to do something, there is this implicit trust. And this, I don't know what the right word is, but there's complete knowledge and comfort that the commanding officer has done what he or she is asking me to do. How much do you think that kind of leadership is necessary for the team to sort of work fearlessly?
General Arun 26:55
There are four four kinds of leaders below most one doesn't work. That's typically authoritative, brutally authoritative, which means punishment is the reason to work kings, goons, thugs, in a generic sense, even uniform people. So you do do this otherwise. So otherwise is the threat, which means if there is no threat, I will not do it. So those organizations generally will fail. The second level is respect. So if you respect your team leader for his or her, take a small IT company, a small project they're working on, they have to create a package for let's say, a financial institution. So, the team comprises 10 people and that team lead is an outstanding coder. So, there is no problem on coding that the person cannot resolve, but there is to create a patch or a bridge outstanding, I mean, he can he or she can go through you know, 25 dB of code and come up with with a bridge the next day, robust one that is respect, then the entire team will listen to that person. The next higher level is of wisdom wherein the leader makes himself or herself both capable and approachable. So you're also respected for the skills that you bring to the table, whether they be you know, machine grinding, or people management or strategizing, or marketing or sales or whatever inventory management research. But you also bring alongside a great wisdom of things outside of this specialization which means that you also approachable if somebody has a problem, how many leaders in private companies are actually involved with the personal financial health of the teams they work with, I understand that, you know, the individuals may also deem it very intrusive, but in the army, we are family. So as we speak, there are two officers sitting here, both signals officers who have made this setup possible. I don't have to ask them how your dad or mom is or how much you're doing with your financial life. These are conversations we have all the time. So that keeps my door open to them for any issue that they may have, I may not have the answer to all solutions, but I will retain the ability of reaching out to some other expert who may be able to provide them a solution. A leader has to be somebody who can get the deliverable accomplished. At least cost keeping everybody happy, that's also a cost. So, the people skills of the leader become paramount. His own efficiency and you know bring marketing or research is not as important. So you need a people person. The highest leaders in an organization must also be the most visible to the team. So your MD or your CEO cannot be some faraway figure in a faraway land, who's writing policy from a corner office. He or she has to be able to speak to and feel the pulse of the people who work for the system. So that is something we do quite regularly and quite often. In many ways, the key is three or four things, at least there must be respect, there must be multiple channels of communication open. And there must be an approachability. Because if people don't come to you with their problems, they don't one of two things will happen, they will either start believing that you don't have the capability to solve their problems, or what is worse, they will believe that you really don't care. Both spell doom for a company
Deepak Menon 30:35
General Arun you were previously the director general of strategic planning of the Indian Army. What does strategic planning entail for the Army both in peacetime as well as during times of conflict? What is your focus in this role? What was your focus in this role?
General Arun 30:52
Interesting, it is probably the most interesting, I don't know, I find every job enjoyable, I keep telling everybody, I have the best job in the world. But it was one of the best jobs that I've done. So the time frame is 25 years. Now, 25 years means that typically, if 25 years from now, there were three people recording a podcast, I can guarantee you, it's going to be nothing like what we are doing now. And we probably don't even know how it's going to be done. We cannot even imagine how it's going to be done. So that was my job to imagine the armed forces that will exist 25 years from now, that might seem very difficult, but that is not the most difficult part of the job, the most difficult part of job is having envision or imagine the life 25 years hence, to be able to tell people to live that life 25 years from hence, today, I want you to commit 40,000 crores or you know, $10 million, or whatever it is, that is the job of the DG strategic plan, a strategic planner typically should not have a role in the tactical management operations. Because a strategic planner will not have the tools to be able to execute everyday operations. Those have long gone past his or her table. And it is not just about how an organization must look in terms of the weapons or the technology that is available. It is the structures that are there. It is the people who are there, it's the education qualification of the people who are going to be there, it is how we want the fabric to look, you know, in 25 years from now. So what do we do? There's a wish list. Everyone has one. Now that as far as the Armed Forces is concerned, this job comes from a hopefully a very comprehensive understanding of how technology is going to unfold. Now, these breakaway technologies are game changing technologies that don't happen at the click of a finger. The change might happen that quickly, but the technology itself doesn't come about so quickly. So it takes time, when the technology is changing the manpower or people power to use, the technology will change. So you need to bring about this change. Now to bring about that change. 25 years from now you have to start recruiting and about five years from now, the life of a soldier is about 18 to 20 years. And somewhere down the middle, you have to be very sure you make that leap where you say, because you need people at different services to be able to handle the same equipment. It can't be just the young kid who knows how to use this, all the old guys go home, it doesn't work like that. So that's another chain that's got to come into organization and systems, the way we recruit and the qualifications we look for recruiting has to change. Our training has to change. These are what a strategic planner must look at whatever be the organization he or she cannot be involved with there's been a crisis in our factory in PNG. So let's all fly to Port Moresby and, you know, fix that. It's not going to happen. That has to be somebody else's job.
Sujatha Rao 34:04
Just, you know, continuing to look at these new changes, a new world, what you were referring to in terms of the, you know, the strategic orientation, 25 years hence reimagination of the army and so on and so forth. We also know today that you know, the issues such as mental health, rights, well being for, you know, organizations and employees everywhere, but particularly for people in the army. How does the army take into account things that need to be addressed today, that are beginning to become extremely important, while also sort of putting into place things now that can have an impact, say five or 10 years from now and I'm just using better mental health and well being as an example, because I mean, the nature of the work in the Army is predominantly stressful to a very large extent. So how does the army navigate that? Was just using mental health as just one example.
General Arun 35:02
This is one area where there's been significant change, from an Army thirty five years back where it was assumed that everybody's in good mental health, just like that. How was it assumed because I said so? So from there, we've made a transition to where we are today, which is huge. Now, what has caused this transformation? The army, any army can only represent this society from where it has grown, it's going to be no different. So if I were to tell you that more people from engineering colleges commit suicide than those in the army, would that seem like a real number? That's the truth. And I'm not talking about engineering colleges in general, I'm talking about one premier engineering college of our country, that is how it is the number of kids who seek therapy, the number of people who require counselors not seeing long term, you know, counseling, but counselors counseling, and one session here and there is infinite. Today, the schools have a teacher and counselor ratio of close to seven or eight to one, seven or eight teachers teaching subjects and one counselor to be around and, you know, ensure that everybody, so we've reached that level in society. Now it is those people who are joining the army. And the Army by nature is very physically stressful, you know, pushed to the corners of the envelope every time and physically, mentally, emotionally. So what we've done is we've strengthened the old institutions that we had, we had a large number of old institutions, and the biggest institution we have found, which is an antidote to stress, or two, three, first is physical fitness. We've generally found that a physically fit body is a physically fit mind, in a generic sense. Second thing we found is recreation. While it is important also to celebrate the Olympic athletes and the medal winners, I think it is more important to celebrate the day when every child in school gets to play one sport for half an hour every day. So that is something we realized. The third thing we realized is the power of intra team communication. Whereas if there's a team of 10 people, and if you were to graphically plot it, there must be at any point in time, at least 30 conversations happening, either one to one or lateral or parallel or multi directional or group conversations must be happening. The other thing we realized is the power of group fun. When there is a lot of laughter around an activity, there is a lot of distressing that takes place. The second last thing we found is religion, religious or spiritual solace, we've discovered the power of using these Sarva Dharm Stal, it's called in the army. So we don't have a Mandir or a masjid, or a church, we have a Sarv Dharm Stal. So it's a building, which houses all the gods, and everybody can go there and worship. And it's free. And nobody will ask you for a 10 rupee archane ticket or whatever it is, you can just walk in and pray. By your own, we found these as great stress busters. And last, but not the least, is an ability to be able to communicate with the hierarchy in multiple forms. So when we put all these together, some institutional, some individual personality based. So you see the emphasis on each of the activities may vary based on the leader. If you have a very sporty leader or a CEO, he's going to be present every day to play a game. So one day is playing handball, one day is playing basketball and one day he's running. So we encourage all our officers, everything everybody does together.There is conversation that is happening even during fitness, and then things like that. So, the weightage to each factor may vary. But the sum total kind of remains the same. These have made a big difference. Having said this, there are still people who need, you know, some higher levels of counseling, but we are relying on the strength of our fabric, to be able to spot that individual despite all this. So what happens is when you're playing sports with somebody, and somebody has a bad day, if you play with him every day or play with her every day, you will instantly know one day is okay. When that aberration takes place the second day, then you actually reach out, you know, walk to the guy's room or column to your office to have a conversation. We are relying on our ability to spot early signs of somebody who needs treatment, but it's a 1.3 million army strong. So they will be the odd person who is under serious pressure. And we do have the odd, unfortunate incident but they are very, very few given the size of the organization, and given the nature of our work. But those 10 factors which I said, we are very, very particular about.
Deepak Menon 40:11
Sujatha I'm actually very fascinated how the army is able to balance the task orientation with the people orientation, aspects of leadership, like in corporations and other formal workspaces, we find that relationships are transactional, and there is a very high emphasis on tasks to be delivered. Yeah, and people are left to fend their personal lives on their own.
General Arun 40:36
So I think it's because now don't get me wrong, a manager, very essential to an organisatios managers, but a leader is inescapable. We corporations employ people and make them managers. What we need to do is to elevate a component of these managers into leaders, by giving them a fancy title, they will not become a leader. Leadership is a verb, it's an action phrase. I mean, a brilliant CEO, or whatever title one wants to give him or her should never ever be in the office, except for those two hours a day, a brilliant leader must have on every working day, at least 45 minutes of thinking time, see when we talk of the components of communication, there are four, of which two are listening, and thinking, that's 50%. So for listening, he or she has to step out to meet people, leaders must have a face, leaders cannot be invisible. And thinking if you're not able to think on your own without being disturbed by an impending meeting, or a phone call, or a signature, or something else. And I'm saying this is 45 minutes of completely alone whiteboard time, much like what a researcher may have in a laboratory. 45 minutes is all I'm saying in one full working day. And when you actually go and ask many senior leaders, how much time do you have where nobody walks in your office, you're not walking to somebody's office, you're not asking for a cup of tea, there is nothing, it's just you and your mind, and a piece of paper or a whiteboard. And the answer is very sad, because everybody is chasing the graph. Sadly, if you look at the human part of the organization, the graph will take care of itself. That's the truth. And that is why I believe that it is people who make companies successful, not policies, not resources, not infrastructure, not hardware. It is the human being, no matter what the company is. So I think if we invest in the people management component of it, it will make a big difference. And this has to be a consistent sincere day to day effort. Rather than, you know, these one time, you can't have a Bollywood pop star or a rock star coming in performing once a year on your campus and everybody having a good time. That's important. Some companies have invested in families, which is brilliant. Some companies have invested in the education of individuals or the employees, team members, which is fantastic. So for the listener, it is always a choice you can choose to become architects of a glorious future, if you don't make this choice. We are certain to be defenders of a certain decline. In an organization or in society or in a nation, there are only these two choices. There is no third space you choose.
Sujatha Rao 43:43
Thank you so much for coming to the WorkWise Pod today. There have been so many things that we've spoken about that I think we will have to spend time rethinking and sort of deconstructing and spending time with these thoughts. But it's been an absolute privilege to talk to you. And it's also been wonderful listening to what the Army has been doing, which for many of us, we sort of see the army in its sort of ceremonial facade and appearance without really understanding what goes inside the army to create this large giant that still works so cohesively, and keeping the human being at the heart of it. So tremendous learning for me, and I thank you so much for joining us today.
General Arun 44:32
Welcome.
Sujatha Rao 44:33
Thank you.
Sowmya 44:38
Thank you for listening. That was Deepak and Sujatha, talking to general A Arun about how the Indian Army manages both scale and agility on the battlefield. You will find the resources referred to in the episode in the show notes, but more information on our website, www dot workwisepod dotcom. We'd love to hear from you. Comment on the website or write to us hello at workwise pod.com. Credits go to Sanjali Ranjan for the cover art and Derek Clegg for the intro and outro music. Today's episode was mixed and edited by Prashant Venkatesan, production support from me, Sowmya Karun. Don't forget to subscribe to the workwise pod on your favorite podcasting platform.
