The Organizational 12 Policy Acid Test [LDPT] - Aditya Yadav

1. *
“Running an Agile Fortune 500 Company”
Aditya Yadav, aditya.yadav@gmail.com
in.linkedin.com/in/adityayadav76

2. * A Typical Global Company
* Fortune 500/1000
* 200 Divisions
* 40 Countries
* 25000 Employees
*

3. *
@ Acme Inc.

4. * Original Question “How do we design our
Policies and Processes to Succeed?”
* The Correct Question - “That’s a Huge Effort
and we should do it. But we can work
backwards with LDPT [Leaders Dozen Policy
Test]. And see where we stand. It will give us a
picture of where we are exactly vis-a-vis the
Best Firms with the most Cutting Edge Thought
Leadership on the matter. Shall we?”
*

5. *
And The Philosophy Behind The Answer

6. * Organizational policies and processes can be a
competitive advantage for your company. They can
help you attract, recruit, hire, and retain the best
talent.
* They are a reflection of Thought Leadership in the
organization.
* In this presentation we will go through LDPT very
briefly and to a Reality Check against it in the
context of our Organization.
* You can use the test like a Score Card. Assigning a 0
or 1 point per Line Item giving a score on a total of
12 point scale.
*

7. * Very Difficult to implement in a Blue Collar setup.
* Quite Tricky to implement in a Multi-Business Firm
* Mostly intended towards Knowledge Firms (Gold
Collar)
* Contrary to Legacy Thinking it doesn’t promote
Slackers.
* It delivers a tremendous boost in productivity and
employee engagement and consequently Results.
* Anti-Thesis: Are you still tracking Attendance???
*

8. * Means Managers can’t dictate Anything
* Managers explain the Projects/Tasks/Options/Choices and employees
choose and volunteer
* Maximizes Ownership/Drive, Probability of Success and Quality of
Outcomes and Empowerment
* Employees will obviously want to perform the best to grow and make the
maximum bonus.
* But with that in the backdrop employees have the choice of opting in…
* Nobody says – you can’t take a leave tomorrow because we need you, you
have to travel to Egypt next week for a month, you need to join this
project, you need to deliver this on so and so date
* If nobody in your entire office wants to do something, then get a hint and
figure out why (and what’s wrong with that thing).
* Anti-Thesis: Obsession with Control and Micro Management [Fear of Losing
Control]
*

9. * New Employees need to Commit to their Choice of Project for 1 year.
* Continuing Employees need to Commit to their Choice of Project for
6 months.
* But basically there is no Empire Building or Fiefdom.
* You can openly apply to any project in any location in the company in
any geography across the world and move on. And you don’t need
anyone’s (Managers included) approval before doing that. You just
need to inform your Manager in advance to enable a comfortable
transition for everyone.
* Maximizes Retention, Empowerment, Collaboration, Organizational
Competitiveness, Breaks all Silo’s
* Anti-Thesis: Manager’s Play God and your organization is basically a
Game of 10,000 Kingdoms rather than functioning as one
Organization.
*

10. * No we are not talking about Flexi Timings
* We are saying “Everyone should work from anywhere they can get
their work done from”
* This is a very broad statement
* If you are in Sales/Consulting you will be on the road, if you are
doing Agile you will be with your team, if you are in Support you will
be in front of a Dashboard & Ticketing System.
* But nobody says anything, employees are responsible and they decide
between themselves.
* Maximizes: Responsible Behavior, Comfort, Engagement, Flexibility
* Anti-Thesis: Sitting in a cubicle from 9am-6pm waiting for the clock
to hit 6.
*

11. * If some Employees have Laptops they can take
home.
* Then there is no reason why everyone who is not
dealing with Financial data cannot have Free
Internet Access
* If they wanted to do something they could have
done it anyway with the data on their laptops at
their home with their home Internet
* R’ber there are Laws to deal with Illegal things
* Anti-Thesis: Paranoid About Security, Distrust
Everyone. And this Distrust Drives Everything in your
Organization preventing Success.
*

12. * Do you have employment Bonds on some pretext or the other?
* Like after a US trip on the pretext of knowledge transfer?
* Or after compulsory training on the pretext of Costs?
* Do you ask prospective employees to join you in 2 weeks and give your
existing employees 3-4 month notice periods?
* Do you create extensive Non-Compete Clauses?
* Answer this- Which age are you living in? What kind of people do you hire?
* Anti-Thesis: You have such policies which have adverse distortionary
effects on the Ecosystem. They make sure your organization doesn’t have
any values, principles, practices or any culture for that matter. If
everyone uses restrictive clauses the ecosystem is doomed. The silicon
valley became what it is today due to minimal or absolutely no restrictive
practices. Wondering about Economic Clusters and worrying about the
Ecosystem doesn’t help if you do this because nobody (Organizations or
Employees would benefit from this)
*

13. * With the exception of Accounting information,
Salaries of specific individuals, Information required
for Regulatory Compliance
* Everything else should be public inside the company
including billing rates, project contracts,
dashboards, policies
* Going around screaming nobody looks at the big
picture doesn’t help.
* Anti-Thesis: Spending the majority of your time in
the Organization worrying about who should know
what.
*

14. * The only Cabins are for Discussions and Meetings, or
For The Finance/Accounting team.
* Nobody (including the CEO) has any cubicles or cabins
* Agile warrants Dining Tables and Collaborative
Workspaces.
* But Google kind of Designer workspaces work great
too.
* Maximizes Collaboration, Productivity, Decision
Making, Agility, Transparency…
* Anti-Thesis: Your thinking is stuck in the 1900’s era of
Manufacturing.
*

15. * Lunch & Learn is a Bottom Up Adhoc Learning and Knowledge
Sharing Session conducted by employees or external speakers
in organizations. Without any required Approvals.
* The biggest problem to utilizing the 1 HR Lunch for Learning
rather than wasting it away is that Cafeteria is either
physically separate or Policy prevent bringing food to the
Desk or Conference rooms on some pretext or the other
* Ideally any employee should be able to announce and host a
Session in a meeting room without requiring any approvals.
And others should be able to carry their lunch to the Session.
* Anti-Thesis: You have lost probably the Biggest Chance to
promote Organizational Learning and yet you Crib and do
nothing about it. And stick with Training and Development
Departments with Million $ budgets, which never works
anyway.
*

16. * Not only should the internet be free
* The Organization should position itself as a thought leader in the
Ecosystem
* Everyone should understand about not disclosing financial
information and the right online behavior but that doesn’t mean
losing out on the opportunity of engaging the Vendors, Suppliers,
Prospective Employees, Customers and the Ecosystem at large.
* Maximizes: Leadership Development, Engagement, Responsibility and
Ownership, Reputation, Quality, Achievements, Hiring, Learning…
* Anti-Thesis: Only the few Top Management folks have the authority
to write/speak in public. Something which is designed by Marketing
3-4 weeks in advance. Your organization is on an isolated, secluded
island very far from reality, always wondering why everything is going
downhill.
*

17. * Failure shouldn’t be punished otherwise nobody will want to do
anything new on their own or even if asked to do.
* Your Organizational Change efforts never work out. Wonder why?
Because if they can’t change or fail in the new situation they will be
penalized.
* Wonder why nobody Innovates at your company? Because it requires
considerable effort, requires change, and extreme personal risk of
failure.
* Of all the Change Models and Strategy Theories this is the biggest
reason why no one is ready to change.
* If you fix this one situation you don’t need million dollar change
(strategy) consultants.
* Anti-Thesis: Your organization works under an illusion or Command
and Control but nothing works, and everyone is busy maintaining the
status quo.
*

18. * This doesn’t mean officially supporting Abusive
Behavior in office.
* This means the freedom of respectable debates based
on facts, assertions and maybe opinions in the
workplace on any topic.
* Google says “You can argue as long as you are right”
Lets just say “You can argue as long as you are
respectful”
* Anti-Thesis: Nobody speaks his mind (laughing in their
minds when things fail) avoiding confrontations and
reality and being Yes Men! That could be very
gratifying to the senior folks in charge but the
organization is doomed.
*

19. Aditya!!!
*