An evening with Sirisha Bhamidipati
Introduction
On Friday, May 17, we had a very engaging session by Ms Sirisha Bhamidipati, leading HR consultant and co-author of the book, “Hope is not a strategy.”. Culture and strategy go together. While culture may seem abstract or intangible, it is indeed both an art and a science. From behavioural science insights to practical strategies, Sirisha explained how intentional culture cultivation drives organizational success.
About Ms Sirisha Bhamidipati
Ms Sirisha Bhamidipati is a highly accomplished professional with a diverse background in consulting, program management, and leadership development. She completed her MBA from IIM Ahmedabad and a Fellowship from Carnegie Mellon University, where she was awarded the prestigious Nehru Fulbright scholarship. She is also a certified Design Thinking practitioner from d-school, Stanford University.
At Cognizant Technology Solutions, Sirisha managed complex domain-intensive engagements, ramping teams from 5 to 560 in less than 6 months. In 2015, she was recognized as one of the "Global Emerging Transformation Leaders" by Training Magazine in the US.
Since 2017, Sirisha has been working on culture building, organization design, and people strategy consulting, with a focus on driving 10X growth for her clients. She specializes in business leadership, strategic alignment, culture building, organization design, strategy execution, leadership development, and innovation. Her expertise and experience have helped her consulting company, Align By Design become a sought-after partner for leaders who want to empower their companies through strategic alignment. Sirisha’s book, ‘Hope is not a Strategy’ provides a systematic approach to culture building. She also has a copyrighted framework to her name.
About culture
As Sirisha mentions in her book, culture is the invisible, yet influential force that shapes the identity and experience of an organization. We can think of it as the ”smell of the place” or the “fabric of the organization”. Culture defines the character and resilience of the organization. A strong and well aligned culture can lead to better employee engagement, innovation, and better business outcomes.
Challenges in scaling culture
When companies are small, things seem to work smoothly. People are in synch and are driven by the passion to build a great product or service. But as the company grows, there are scaling challenges. One function seems to be pitted against the other. Earlier, there was a singular focus. But now different functions seem to have their own priorities. People point fingers at each other. There is considerable dissonance.
Some of the typical statements heard are:
- The culture was great when we were small.
- It is so difficult to work with the new leader.
- We keep arguing about the same things in every review meeting.
- Do you know why the company took this decision? They say it is X but actually it is Y.
- Why do I still need to drive key initiatives?
- Why are other leaders not thinking like me?
- Why am I not able to delegate more?
- Why am I spending so much time resolving disputes?
- Why don’t other leaders have the same emotional ownership as me?
- We can do more work. But can others scale up?
Typically, companies deal with the situation in the following ways:
Culture pulse surveys: These surveys attempt to find out what people are saying and what they feel needs to change. Based on the results, the canteen vendor may be changed, or the restrooms may be upgraded.
Rewards and Recognition: This often starts based on merit but soon gets diluted to giving rewards to employees in turns.
Certification: When companies struggle to control the noise within, they look outside. They may rope in an external agency to certify that the organization is a great place to work with.
Offsites: When the offer to joining ratio starts to decline and the noise on the Glassdoor website starts to increase, they resort to offsites for promoting employee bonding.
Hire for culture fit: Suddenly, there is a realization that maybe the wrong people have been hired. The focus shifts to hiring the right people.
Why these initiatives fail.
These initiatives fail because they are like putting band aid. They do not address the fundamentals:
Purpose: The purpose is why the company exists. What is the larger problem we are trying to solve?
Culture: How do people behave when none is watching? How do get things done? What is the transparency/candour of communication?
Values: What is the DNA of the company, i.e. the priorities which are reflected in everything people do?
Alignment: Alignment is about getting everyone on the same page. Structured and sustained action is needed to achieve alignment along various dimensions:
Alignment on why: Why do we exist? What is our goal?
Alignment on how: This is about the desired identity. How will we get there? What traits, values and behaviours matter to us? How will we make the inevitable trade-offs? Alignment on how is more difficult compared to alignment on why. Less than 20% of companies get this right.
Alignment on who: What kind of people do we need to achieve the goals? How will we guide, challenge, and support them?
The lack of alignment does not matter much when the company is small. In a small company, the communication gaps are less. People come together to quickly address problems. For example, there is quick resolution of client issues. But in a larger organization, due to lack of alignment, the communication gaps are much bigger. Decisions are more likely to be delayed, leading to unhappy clients.
CEO’s agenda
Many companies have a good strategy. But not all of them succeed. Success requires financial capital and human capital. Financial capital is easier to mobilize. But human capital, largely about culture building, is more difficult. It needs the sponsorship of the CEO. Culture building cannot be left to HR. It must be part of the CEO’s agenda.
Resolving dilemmas
Dilemmas are a part of life, especially in a growing organization. Alignment requires tough choices between various dilemmas.
Sirisha and her husband Harish, have meticulously studied various organizations, identifying common and unique dilemmas. Their research has led to a comprehensive framework that addresses these dilemmas head-on, ensuring alignment across all levels of the organization.
The key to tackling dilemmas isn't just about choosing one side of the scale or the other. It is about establishing a shared understanding of the principles guiding those decisions and fostering alignment.
Blindly copying the practices of other companies will not enable a company to resolve dilemmas satisfactorily. One Indian IT company for example tried to imitate Netflix and felt it would have a vibrant culture and thrive automatically. It even introduced a leave policy with no cap on the days of leave. Soon, customer facing engineers began to go on leave, leaving clients unhappy. In other words, a company should choose the option that best suits its own needs and those of its industry.
Culture can vary across companies. There is no right or wrong. But culture must support the company’s strategy. For example, customer delight is important for Zappos, where Sirisha did an internship during her Fellowship. At Zappos, if a customer is unhappy and calls up to complain, a refund is given immediately over the call. Then efforts are made to find out why the client is unhappy. The problem is then fixed.
Dilemmas often involve a choice between two good options, driven by the desired identity, the goals, and the environment.
For example, the choice could be between employee delight and customer delight. The way dilemmas are resolved will determine how the teams operate and decisions are taken.
Consider the choice between Professional Sports Team and Happy Family. In a professional sports team, every person has a clear goal. Only the best people are taken. The onus is on the individuals. The focus is on high performance. The environment is very competitive.
In a Happy Family, people cover up for each other’s shortcomings and together they thrive. Relationship matters more than individual performance. Radical candour is not consistent with Happy Family.
Zappos is an example of a Happy Family. The company prioritizes employee happiness, personal development, and a positive work environment.
Again, there is no right or wrong. We must be clear about what we want to be and what will serve us best.
Dilemmas may also be interconnected. Consider client delight and employee delight. Where client delight is the focus, clients may be delighted with the quality, but employees may be unhappy due to the tough work culture. Where employee delight is the priority, clients may not be delighted with the quality of the work but employees may be happy with the work environment.
Values must be reflected in everything a company does. Based on where the company is and where it wants to be, it must reflect, assess, and recalibrate at every step of the growth journey.
Note: Purpose provides stability and meaning. The desired identity is the way the company manifests its purpose in the real world. A clear identity aligns behaviours, shapes interactions within the company as well as with external entities. Purpose and desired identity together form the DNA of the company.
Concluding remarks
Culture is nothing fancy. It is about how people behave when no one is watching.
Culture needs to align with the strategy. So, culture building must be deliberate.
Culture building is not a one-time activity. It is a continuous process needing a CEO focus.
Q&A
When Sirisha joined her first job, she had a mentor who asked her to write her own obituary, i.e. things that she would want to be remembered for at the end of her journey. With some effort, Sirisha managed to write the things that mattered most to her. These became the foundation for Sirisha. Her mentor then told Sirisha to ensure that every piece of her work, conversations, presentations reflected these aspects. Over time, these core values became cemented.
Sirisha worked mostly in consulting roles. She noticed that every company has a set of core values. Thanks to her stint in the Fulbright Fellowship program, she realized the importance of culture and how it acted as a foundation. In the US, the best companies get this right. But in India, many companies just chase the numbers without the foundation in place. This triggered Sirisha’s resolve to contribute to this field.
Sirisha gave the example of a tech product/services company. There were passionate founders. They had built a good product. They were ready to scale 10X. But there was not much conversation around values. The leaders felt that integrity, trust, and respect were their core values. But these are non-negotiable values. They do not define a company’s identity. Using their proprietary Dilemma Resolution Framework, Sirisha and Harish determined that the company was focused on getting wow from the customers. There was also an unwritten rule that when faced with a problem, one should not give up easily. Accordingly, the core values of the company were defined as: customer delight, and perseverance.
Companies sometimes have wrong notions about their core values. A bank claimed transparency to be more important than confidentiality. But banking regulations make it difficult to be transparent beyond a point. During a senior leadership workshop, as Sirisha started digging deeper, the execs realized that they were closer to the confidentiality end of the spectrum. When they dropped transparency from the list of core values, employees began to trust them more.
Over time, as they operate, companies know what is important to them and what they will not compromise. These are the core values. That is how the DNA is identified. There should not be more than 3-4 core values. Just like in an obituary, three or four words should describe the company’s DNA.
Culture does not just happen. Companies should be proactive when it comes to building culture. There should be an engineering approach. The problem must be broken into smaller parts.
The uncompromisable core values of the founders and the needs of the marketplace together define the company’s DNA. At every step, the company should pause, reflect, pick some things from the past and leave some behind. For example, people who are good in the 0 to 1 journey may not be suitable for the 1-10 journey. It is ok if they drop out. It is good for the individual and for the organization.
Sometimes, the founder CEO who took the company from 0 to 1, may not be suitable for taking the company from 1 to 10. When the personal DNA conflicts with the company’s DNA, there are bound to be problems. Stepping back and handing over the reins to a new generation of leaders is important.
The context keeps changing over the scaling journey:
0-1: This is about product market fit.
1-3: This is about the initial burst of revenue.
3-10: This involves exponential scaling.
10-100: This involves entering multiple geographies.
Culture should enable the implementation of strategy. At each stage of evolution, companies and leaders must pause and reflect: Who are we? What do we want to be? Who am I?
Sirisha provided an illustration. A large fintech had shown spectacular growth and was already a unicorn. It had received a lot of funding. The company had a good strategy in place. Everything looked fine. But the company had not worked on its culture.
Suddenly, things started going wrong. People started making noises. Anonymous messages went to the board. Employees complained of compromises on integrity. There was a lack of camaraderie within the team. There was employee burnout. Attrition began to increase.
Sirisha was invited as a consultant to diagnose the problem. It became clear that the leaders were not aligned. They were going all over the place to meet the numbers. It was as if each leader was running his/her own company. There was a lack of transparency.
Sirisha reported to the board that the company was in trouble due to lack of alignment and a well-defined culture. Now many of the leaders have quit. A new team is being put in place. The company is making a fresh start.
Diversity goes far beyond gender. Women as a standalone agenda will not be effective. It is not merely about having more women in the company. That kind of an approach will only result in a quota system.
Instead, we should ask: Why do we need women? Is it because of their empathy or broader perspectives? After all, women are wired differently. They may be able to contribute with a different thought process.
Moreover, diversity is much bigger than gender composition. For example, tech companies are recruiting design professionals. This is changing the way code is being written and products are being developed. Autistic people can bring in their special capabilities. When such people are involved in design exercises, the results are spectacular.
In short, we must be clear about the purpose diversity should serve and then bring the right people in. Rather than looking at diversity as an exercise in doling out favours, we must see what benefit we can get out of it.
Lateral hires come with their own baggage. How do we align them with the company’s DNA? If companies are too rigid, how will they leverage the experience?
Percolating the DNA is important at every step. During the onboarding, we must explain with scenarios how people are expected to act in different circumstances. What is the norm? What is non-negotiable? A playbook should be developed for the different scenarios. From entry to exit, elements of the culture must be integrated into the journey of employees.
This does not mean that new joiners, who have prior experience, must give up everything when they join a new organization. Some values are non-negotiable. They define the core fabric. For example, the core values may be customer delight, perseverance, and execution excellence. This means that a product will not be shipped till it is completely free from effects. But beyond that, experienced employees can bring their own perspectives and insights.
Sooner or later, companies will hit a roadblock. The realization typically comes when there is a disaster. Red flags are not proactively identified or acknowledged.
Second time founders tend to be more aware of the challenges. They are more open and proactive. Younger leaders who are more aware due to their education, tend to be more serious about culture building.
Founders who are building the company for sale in 4-5 years, are not focused on culture building. Indeed, it need not be a priority for them. They are focused on valuation rather than the foundation.