Intellectual Discussion

Intellectual discussion:

One of the things that I have realised (thanks to a long discussion with Madhur M yesterday) is that there is a huge value in discussing 1's thoughts and ideas with people who have a completely varied background (for context, I was discussing the mail on a firm's culture) and taking inputs before freezing 1's framework.

For any intelligent deduction on any topic, I thought, all that was required was peace of mind and some spare time to think. I would try and think of a problem, gather about my thoughts on the same, and having thought through on my own, I would assume that I had come to an complete (and correct!) solution and would passionately defend the same. All the gyan that the management books made about having variety in 1's team to bring about variety in perspectives, I thought was just that: gyan.

However, the discussion with him (he coming from a trading floor in HSBC, London) made me see the difference in how our perception of ideas / concepts / events is coloured by lenses through which we see. I have been, for some inexplicible reason, been very attached to the idea of a "BCG family" and how it is evolving (in my views, becoming more transactional than personal, as was earlier the case). I guess it is because I can relate to so many people in the office at so many different levels.

He coming from the trading floor saw no reason why that should be the case! For a business that is so completely individual dependant (you will rarely hear about a star consultant, however, the world abounds with Star Traders), he sees no reason why there should be the soft mushy feeling of culture and family around the office environment. Yes, it would be helpful to have it, he says, but then if the feeling of competition is getting the firm more revenues and profits (with one ST gunning after the other), there is no reason why the firm leadership should promote a sense of "family" in the company. It might be helpful, he concedes, in the team environment in which consultants work but even there, there is no demonstratable proof that a feeling of camaraderie (or more than sharing just a transactional relationship with your colleagues) will actually help bolster productivity or creativity.

I obviously cannot prove that to him with hard numbers. However, it is interesting that my framework has now evolved: it now comes with a caveat that the family culture is of importance in a team driven situation rather than in a individual performance driven work environment. (The need for social support to the employee is still there, but it is not necessarily given by the colleagues he works with, but by his out-of-work mates and friends).

The next big challenge to my framework: what should be the size of the team sharing the camaraderie? What I hear from RamG, Shaleen, Sharad etc seems to suggest that even if the case teams share a friendly bond, that should be enough. I will however miss the fact that by growing - and growing fast! - we might be splitting the large joint family into small nuclear households. While all function effectively, the lost feeling of one-ness does make me (and Tushar?) feel sad.