Ravi Speaks:
Update on 05.08.2022.
I have seen The ‘Yes-Boss’ Culture More Dominant During My Service Tenure
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| Yes, Boss! |
According to Merriam-Webster, “a yes-man is simply someone who agrees with everything that is said, especially one who endorses or supports without criticism every opinion or proposal of an associate or superior.”
“He is one of our best employees because he never says, ‘No’ when we ask him to do things.”
“The boss likes it when we agree with him all the time.”
Right from the time, I entered the serving arena-I have been hearing these above lines invariably with no stop to it. I have seen people saying “Yes-Boss” with no objection to the same or not even raising their point of view for some important assignment-still getting the laurels and climbing the ladder. In “Himalaya”-this has been happening with many people who were experts in polishing/sycophancy and who knew how to butter both sides of bread. So, if I say that people who used to keep their mouth shut without even putting their much-required input or wisdom in certain acts/works-and would carry out their assignments as per the liking & directions of their seniors. These assignments and their directions are given might not always be fruitful and the persons carrying out such works might even realize the outcome not going to be fruitful-still would not raise the queries or even put in their point of view-which becomes detrimental. The only important thing for such people would be to keep their bosses happy and do no correction if needed to their seniors-although their seniors too could be wrong.
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| Depiction Of “Yes-Boss”-Culture. |
Initially, in my early phase of serving tenure as a medical representative I might not have been realizing the sycophancy part and even the “Yes-Boss” culture prevalent-since I was in the learning phase and did not know what extent it was prevalent with my seniors-but one thing was for sure that since all the people were taken in a company used to be the kith and kens of the senior managers-the prevalence of such a culture would have been more and there were young people who otherwise also would not have raised the red flags or correction signals for certain assignments which according to their wisdom would have been necessary. Yes, that might have been the reason for the rate of growth of the company also to be slow in the earlier years say around three decades back.
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| Dedicated Sycophants |
Yes, later on, I realized that there were people who were experts in the “Yes-Boss” business and they too were lucky enough to get earlier breakthroughs for the elevations on the hierarchical chart. I remember there was one very dominant SM of UP in the late eighties-whose two brothers were immediately promoted to the RM’s post and their coterie would rule and dominate the rest of the field staff so much that the culture of “Yes-Boss” developed into more of prominence. Like-wise in Delhi too the SM got all his brothers and cousins promoted to the managerial levels and this way some people who had put in more than a decade or even two decades of service in the field and were even more competent than those promoted-had to live the life of “Yes-Boss” and were not elevated purely on their merits.
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Vibrant, Independent & Self Assessing Culture Matters. |
No doubt the such type of atmosphere was very prevalent those days in almost the whole of the private sector-where the one man’s dominance was very much visible. But with the advancement of time, such culture had to die down and even vanish in certain progressive organizations and there was a dire need for talent and even the dashing smart guys who could drive the whole of the organization on the oil wheels towards success with a higher rate of growth and that too very consistent one.
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It Is Better To Be Leaders. |
In most companies, the reign of the “yes man” (and woman) is over. Today, leaders want (and need) a highly engaged workforce empowered to ask questions, challenge the status quo, and take ownership of their company’s success.
“Involved/engaged employees” according to Dale Carnegie,” are enthusiastic about work, inspired and motivated by the leadership, empowered to do their work their way, and confident they can achieve excellence”.
Not only are employees who are empowered to take action and execute work independently satisfied and happier-it is good for their companies too. Some observe that the companies who had engaged employees to outperform in their productivity raised their performance by 207% as to Chris byres in his research.
I hope to see that “Himalaya” where I had worked for almost four decades and I could derive all my learning and experience it-should have a zero percent “Yes-Boss” culture which had been the dominant one earlier. The modern way of getting the smartest engaging guys with their own innovative and knowledgeable skills is put in place to give a real boost to its further growth.
Engaging, Independent, and Innovative-Company-Caring Employee Needed.
With due respect to all the seniors and even those who have been putting their utmost to see the company progress – not that all the people working in the Himalayas are from the “Yes Boss”/”Yes-Man” culture segment. There is even the best in the industry and skill available because it is only the best -who have made the company progress at such a pace of late. But their number should enormously increase now in modern times because the reign of the “Yes-Boss’ is all over.
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