Yes-Men No More

Traditional workplace structures must be overhauled to encourage respectful diss from the bottom to the top.

- Pallavi Jha

It was a tense boardroom. The top-level executives and managers had come together to discuss a strategy to boost sales in a recession-ridden market that was risk averse to trying their new product. Revenues were down and the management had to take a critical call on yearly budgets.

While everyone was on board with the decision to rescind the sales incentives and commissions given the receding bottom line, Shreya had a different view. She sat through the entire meeting without saying a word. But towards the end, after everybody had walked out of the room, she gathered the courage to go up to the CEO and told him how she felt—that reducing the commissions and incentives will have a negative impact, not just on morale but also sales numbers. The CEO heard her viewpoint and called out to everyone to get back inside the boardroom. He asked her to make a quick presentation about her idea and put it up for debate.

While some disagreed with it, Shreya was able to show the merit in not only increasing the incentives, but extending them to non-sales employees as well. By the end of the discussion, the CEO decided to increase the payout on sales and include the entire organisation in the incentive structure. This led to an increased rigor in the employees and gave the message that despite the slowdown, the management had faith in its people’s abilities.

Traditional work cultures have been that of ‘violent agreement’ with our seniors. This hierarchical mindset creeped into workplace dynamics and has been the norm for many organisations.