Rewriting the rules of our game

When monetary incentives do not create the necessary enthusiasm in a business relationship, you realize that the rules you were taught of in your MBA classes have changed. In fact, in these tribal villages you can leave behind most of what you were taught, just bring along one golden rule, “be willing to adapt”.
Early on, as we worked with tribal artists, we tried to identify the correct monetary incentives to speed up production, to attract craftsmen and to increase quality. We realized very soon that while a fair wage was expected and sought out by the artisans, an increase in money did not result in any added enthusiasm to increase their production. It was the combination of verbal communications and quality personal time spent with the artists in understanding their trade that actually helped us increase efficiency and output.
For these new players, the incentives seem to be “the appreciation of their trade” and “an inclusive business enterprise”. We willingly agreed to play by their rules and we have come to see why these rules are superior to the rules of our corporate boardrooms. Here one is able to appreciate hard work and skill, whereas these qualities are sometimes lost in the numbers game of meeting targets and deadlines when the human element is left out. Of course we need a bit of both, some appreciation of the handiwork behind the product and some deadlines that have to be met. What we had gotten used to were pure numbers and bottom lines but working with rural artisans has brought back into sharp relief the value of the double bottom line, or in other words, the value of the human element.

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