You won't find too many organisations asking their employees what their dreams are -- and if they did, you won't find too many employees who know just how to achieve those dreams.
Still, this is the one question that can help drive change in individuals as well as organisations. Here's how.
Transformation involves change. It is, therefore, a slow process and often faces resistance. Too many people and organisations focus their efforts on practising management without knowing where they want to go.
Management practices are admirable, no doubt, but organisation transformation involves people transformation. Connecting people to their dreams and being connected to their dreams can help us change.
Therefore, if transformation is worked upon together as a common dream and is linked to the personal dreams of the people involved, it has better chances of realisation.
The first step to transforming an organisation is for the CEO to reach out to his own self. You cannot drive an organisation without knowing what is important for you, what is your personal dream and is also very important for the CEO to have a dream that not only connects him to his own purpose in life but also drives him towards a noble goal -- a dream for the country, perhaps, and for mankind.
Unfortunately, most of us do not think on these lines and, therefore, do not believe that our dreams form part of a larger picture. This restricts the ability of the CEO to connect with his people and also to initiate transformation.
The trouble is, most people do not take time out to dream; at the sub-conscious level, we do not wish to move from our comfort zone, where we believe everything to be logically correct and are thus not willing to explore the complexities of a different world or situation.
These complexities actually arise more because we are unable to find solutions to various unfamiliar situations.
For instance, a leader keen on transformation may find important power groups in the organisation think differently. In such a situation, you need a breakthrough -- that may even mean doing away with the existing system.
Remember, these dreams are about much more than quality issues and management. Why is this so important? Because having dream such as profits maximisation cannot lead to organisation transformation.
Every organisation can improve on profit or finance by putting in place some processes, quality measures or cutting costs. To make an organisation breakthrough as a CEO you need to be sensitive to what is happening in society.
The CEO must have a clear dream, a vision of how he wants to achieve that dream, and must also be clear about what he wants to achieve through the use of the breakthrough techniques.
The CEO, therefore, needs to transform himself as a first. He should be able to dream and connect his dream to the dreams of both the organisation and the people within.
At Sona, for instance, I dreamt a vision, which we collectively agreed upon as a community -- to create a great manufacturing company, one in which Indians and India can take pride. We aligned our personal and organisational dreams and drew a roadmap to realise our dream.
The biggest challenge that the CEO will face in this process of transformation is changing the mindset of the people for the right cause. In obtaining a breakthrough in this transformation, the CEO has to use a combination of logic and intuition.
He needs to dream, define why he wants to achieve that dream, change his own mindset, identify tools to change other's mindset and then practice these tools to make his dream happen.
He must explicitly define the transformation he wishes to make and then decide on the action plan to achieve his dream. Without an action plan no dream can turn into a reality. But without a dream, no transformation can become a reality either!
Dr Surinder Kapur is the Chairman, CII Mission for Manufacturing Innovation, and Chairman and Managing Director, Sona Koyo Steering Systems.
