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The Law

Mindset - IV

In my days in the steel industry, I have experienced both kinds of bosses - with open and closed mindsets. The distinction between the two personalities are sharp and clear.

Steel business in India, and perhaps globally, sees cyclical ups and downs. There will be valley of poor demand for three to five years followed by good demand period of three to five years.

The behavior and the managerial actions of the two types were distinctly different, specially during the valley years - when the business dipped.

The open mindset boss focused on cutting out wasteful expenditures, building better processes and systems, intensive communication and interaction across the organisation. The idea was to improve the the cost effectiveness of the business to tide over the difficult period and maximise the benefits in the sunshine period as a fallout of actions taken in the dip years.

The Boss with a closed mindset, invariably resorts to managing by terrorising. He cuts jobs ruthlessly without the humane touch, stops expenditure on training and communication, use threats and suffocates his people. His people are commodities to him. He will spread gloom, encourage a culture where practices of fault finding and assigning blame thrive. If his men do not answer with an "yes" , such a boss feels threatened and slighted.

A boss with a closed mindset works with the mindset that he knows the best. And therefore seeking feedback is not necessary.

We have discussed on the harms of putting a label on a child. The same holds true for adults. A label has a serious potential influence in convincing a person that he is defined by the label. His behavior conforms to the label.

There is a common belief in India, that a person belonging to lower caste or backward caste has a lower level of intelligence and is therefore fit only for menial work. This is a label put on an entire caste. This belief has fostered in India over centuries. The population belonging to the lower castes had been ingrained with this label to such an extent that they conform to the belief and feel the treatment they received as their destiny. I have seen that they feel ashamed to take a seat by the side of upper caste persons. They are satisfied with what little they receive for the menial jobs they do.

There are a few exceptions who have earned white collar jobs. These people are viewed with disdain by their upper caste counterparts. Most of these slighted group of white collar lower caste people succumb to this disdain by either accepting their fate or developing an inferiority complex which may cause them to behave with duplicity. The few, who have an open mindset, do not give value to the labels and have taken the teeth out of the label. They focus on doing what need to be done - they have the grit to combat adversities, learn and grow.

That brings us to another character trait that distinguishes people of open mindset from those with the closed mindset - grit. 

bis bald

Prabir