Corporate Lesson #1: ALIGNMENT...Definition and FAQs

C-World has returned back with full vengeance to take its revenge on Mr. Academics.

Everyday I am learning new things as also new techniques that people use here to cope with the artificial personality we portray from 9-xyz pm. And one great tool, a solution to most of the C-World travails is "Alignment". I did not know this during my past incarnation as Engineer, but am learning that its much more important when you need outputs from people instead of computers.

So what the hell is this "Alignment"?

Let me share a small story. One day my Boss asked to write a document and present it in a meeting. Well, my mistake, I thought that I've been hired to bring fresh views so I put some of my perspective to it. I devoted 2-3 hours in developing what I felt was a good document for the meeting. Unfortunately I forgot that unlike computers, people have their own minds. So I committed the grave crime of not "Aligning" it with my Boss. You can imagine what would have happened in the meeting. Needless to mention, I was lynched by my Boss and all others over each word written in the document!

Lesson learnt: Alignment is the key to success. This alignment is not about what your consumer is thinking, its not about what competitors are doing, its also not about where is the industry going..no..no..all this is sham. Alignment is all about what your Boss is thinking. You grab that, you are right, you don't get that, you will be incinerated. Alignment is absolutely needed to get accolades and flourish in job....especially a job that deals with people. Poor computers, I used to hate them and call them innane but they were so good...at least they did not play mind-games with people who worked for them!

So Ladies and Gentlemen, here is the Corporate Lesson #1: the Mindgame of Alignment. You need to be constantly on your toes, thinking...no not about the market or technology, but about what's in your Boss' mind. You should spend all your time in guessing what he or she is thinking and be able to get it right. As long as you can guess it all, you will carry the day...your all recommendations will be praised/accepted and you will be perfectly aligned! But dare to think differently, dare to have a different view.....you start going out of alignment and should be ready to face the music.

Formal Definition: "Alignment is defined as a process by way of which you stop thinking and step into your Boss's shoes (however stinky they might be!) to synchronize all your memos, recos, ppts and docs with his or her thoughts. It can be easily achieved by forgetting your academic knowledge, loacking up your mind and toeing your Boss's line of thought. Experience has shown that its necessary for success and is directly proportional to your rating, promotion chances, salary hike and your probablity of stay in the company"

Ok Guys....I'm ready to face the questions...shoot....

FAQ 1: One moment...didn't we think that C-World rewards "Creative thinking"...they need "Innovation", "Big Ideas", "Out of Box" thinking....?

Ok...you again get it all wrong. Innovation is fine so long as you don't propose anything that your Boss never thought of, Creativity is fine so long as you are able to capture your thoughts within the cage of cliches and "Best practices" of your organization's "values and culture". Dare to be different and well, you got it, you will be mis-aligned again and as I warned you, that's BAD.

FAQ2: "How do I guess what's in Boss' mind...its so tough"..

hmm, Good question (when I say this, you know that I dont know the exact answer)....All I can say is, there is data out there and instead of stupidly wasting your time in thinking about your work and increasing your knowledge, you will spend your time much more fruitfully by mining all the data to think what he or she thinks about the matter at hand. Some more tips: put your mobile recorder on during meetings to capture eveything that he/she speaks on matter during and simply put that in the document on the topic...your work is done! More importantly, record/note/capture what ever his/her Boss is saying and simply type that down in all your docs...he/she will be automatically aligned to that, however cliche' it might sound...its all a chain of alignment out there and you need to link in it or you'll be out of your job.

And you thought that its all about having knowledge and demonstrating creativity....

FAQ3: So it means I should not spend my time in learning, increasing my knowledge...isn't that essential for my success?

Sorry....you still didn't get me. Ok, tell me one thing....what do you want to be after success...a professor or a manager? Manager, right? Then why do you need all that knowledge? Your job is to simply take info from one place and pass it to another. In a reverse flow, you also take knowledge from your Boss and percolate it down to your subordinate (if any!)....and hence we all live happily aligned ever after! If you succeed in aligning it right, first time, you are already successful and no longer need any high sounding thing like "technical knowledge" etc etc...

FAQ4: I'm fresh from college and it all sounds so dramatic. Can you give me an example to tell how alignment can work for me?

Ok...not your mistake. In college you copy-pasted what Google spewed, in C-World you need to copy-paste what your Boss is spewing...believe me, its as simple as this!

Let me tell you another incident: once my Boss asked me to develop a presentation. Well, I sent it across and got a reply that I need to explain him what I'm planning to speak on each slide. So I made some slide notes (I noted that he had also made some notes, I was wise enough not to delete them) but was foolish enough to add my own thoughts. Needless to mention, during our meeting he poked into each word that was in the slide notes and since it was not "Aligned". I received delivered a big sermon on why everything that I had written was "irrelevant to the broader audience". Well, finally he arrived at what he had himself written earlier and went on to ask "What's meant by this stupid sentence"....You can imagine how he would have felt when in a very plain voice I answered: "Well, Boss, you wrote it". That's it..he had written it, so it was aligned. Very soon he built up another story on why this sentence made business sense and should be spoken during presentation!

So the moral of the story is: what Boss writes is always correct, and what you write is always wrong, unless of course you toe his or her line of thought. I hope you got the drift!

Ok...guys, one last question please...

FAQ 5: You are wrong....my Boss tells me that she needs my thoughts, my perspective and originality in all my deliverables...how do you explain that?

Well, didn't your HR ever tell you that you are "invaluable asset, required for company's progress"...doesn't your CEO always tell you that the times are "awesome" and that "this is the best time to be in the company" and doesn't your colleague always tell you that he is "doing well"....well my dear friend, its like someone asking me "how are you" and me replying, "I am fine"! I hope you got the answer. Remember one thing, C-World is one big chain whose links are all aligned. Try a radical originality, try "disruptive innovation" and the high chance is that, you will end up disrupting your own job!

Well enough of questions....let me confess that even I am still learning to align and I know that everyone from CEO to lowest level worker in the co is Aligned...thats the thing that binds all in the corporate world. All the best and happy alignment.... I promise to get back to you with more stuff meanwhile, let me know if you are aligned to all that I told you!!

Marketeer from Hadoi Freshenes the developed World

Hi! I have done Masters in Marketing from a "Reputed Business School in East India", for an occupation I sell (no sorry, I Market) Air Fresheners and Air Deodorants to housewives in the developed world.

Yes, I market fancy items to people in developed world but I'm from Hardoi, the place that's worse than the netherworld nations in Sub-Saharan Africa, if I'm to trust the word of some academic researchers.

So being from Hardoi, I have never used the product that I am marketing. The main concern of mine and people around me for past 20 years of my life was to get "mosquito less air" and not "odour less air". Though to be candid, I have also never met the consumers to whom I am marketing. For me my consumers reside in brilliant graphs and data on the desktop. They are in powerpoint slides and white boards in meetings...they are in SPSS data tables and numerous m cross n matrices. But that does not stop me from knowing which Deodorant they use and where they use it. So let me share their world....so different from Hardoi!!

If have one word to describe them, then that would be "out-wordly". I mean, who in this mundane world would ever use on type of Freshener in toilet, another type in fridge, a third type in shoebox and a fourth type in almirah! And thats not enough, the same fella also uses Aerosols with "exotic scents" like "Pumpkin Cake and Cinnamon Cookies" and "Exotic cool Springs"...God...give me a break! I never knew that someone could actually love to remain in hospital like this...but my consumers do it and they are not senile: they are "sensorial". Well, imagine Babu Ram Dulahin (BRD) going sensorial and asking her grandson Kallu to use "Apple Spice Deo".....I'm sure that Babu Ram would not be impressed!

And what's my objective: prove to them that its not enough! Ensure that they use at least 2-3 more varieties of Fresheners and Deodorants...they use it more frequently and they use it use more each time they use it. So I give them new reasons: in winter use Deo for fabrics cannot be washed, in summer use Deo for germs breed in sweat, In rainy season again Deo to suck out humidity, in spring again AF...if u feel bad odor use Deodorant, if you feel low, use Freshener, if you feel ANY odor, use Deodorant...Deo on your socks, Deo in your kitchen, Deo on your mat...Deo here, AF there....there is no stopping.

And in Hardoi? How I encourage a Sarad Kumar use a plug-in Freshener when he does not even have a bulb in his house? And can I ever ask a Kallu to use an Aerosol when every 10 minutes a stray pig, freshly bathed in human waste from nearest open drain, disposes off its own waste right outside his door? Will Tarri ever use a "Placement Deo" in Toilet when the toilet neither has a roof nor does it have a system to flush out waste? Will Ram Khilavan care to try a fabric deodorant when he does not even have enough fabric to wear to face the chilly winter? Will Majhlau ever give a damn to humidity when his main task is to fill the seeping water from walls and ceiling into buckets and throw it out every 15 mins during rainy season. Who cares about mal-odor on cloths when there are not enough cloths and who cares about freshening the house when having a house is a big deal? Well, incense stick is probably the most common Air-Freshener in Hardoi, Thanks God (pun intended!)

And for the concern on Mal-Odor: will Sonu ki Amma ever care for mal-odor in rain when the fresh odor of the unpaved floor fills each room with a natural scent! How do I ask the next-door-housewife BRD use Deo when she her way of cleaning is pasting cow dung around the walls and floor of the house? And also imagine, what "exotic scents" would come out if Hardoi junta was to turn sensorial and participate in a consumer test...forget the rocky springs, try marketing: "Kacche Aam ki Teekhi Chatni" or "Subah ke mandir ki khusbu" or may be, "Lakhan Halwai ki Garam Jalebi, Kesar Walee"...or it might be even be: "Hamree Gaeaa ka Subah wala Taja Doodh" and finally: "Ghar per jaise Gobar ki taaji Lipai"!!

Thats the difference between developed and under-developed market for you. I make fancy strategies to market to developed world while my roots tell me that the product is something I can never identify myself with, unless of course, I forget my roots and become sensorial, something thats too difficult now! Of course, no one in right mind ever think about marketing Deo and Fresheners to consumers whose idea of freshness is a cold bath from water right out of a well. And even I won't do so...sorry need to go, my consumers are calling from the data table...though I guess that somewhere deep inside, Hardoi is calling too!