It happened some years ago on a deserted street in Rome. It was a hot, sunny afternoon. A woman was walking down the street, shopping bags in her hands, whistling a tune to herself, when she noticed a group of labourers breaking stones by the roadside. Clack-clack … clack-clack … they went as their hammers pounded on the stones, splitting them into smaller and smaller bits.

Intrigued, the woman went up to one of the workmen and asked him what he was doing. ‘Can’t you see?’ came the rather terse reply, as the man looked up and wiped the sweat from his brow. ‘I am breaking stones.’

Walking a little farther, she saw another man, also breaking stones. ‘What are you doing?’ she asked him. ‘Me?’ he replied. ‘Oh, I am helping build the world’s tallest cathedral!’

Think about it. Apply this analogy to your workplace. How do your colleagues in the organization perceive their roles? As mere stone breakers, or as the builders of the world’s tallest cathedral?
Does your frontline salesperson see his role as just a ‘sales rep’? Or does he pride himself on being part of a world-class team that is aiming to be the best in the business? Does the woman in your front office see herself as just a ‘receptionist’? Or as the ambassador and the first point of contact of an organization that is aiming to be the best in the business? The difference in the way your frontline members—your ‘stone breakers’—think can spell the difference between a terrific organization and an ordinary one. It can mean the difference between achieving your vision or falling short of your
targets.

And how do successful leaders ensure that their organizations comprehend and share their vision? How do they get individuals to see their roles clearly as indispensable to a larger, grander plan? They do that by articulating a vision for the business. By spelling out a dream that the entire organization can identify with and relate to. They then make sure that every individual understands his role in helping the team realize that vision.

And they also make sure that there is respect in the organization for every individual, for what he brings to the table. For his unique contribution in helping the organization realize its dream. Thus, every individual focuses not only on delivering the best in his assigned role but also on being a fruitful part of a larger winning team. And he basks in the glory of knowing that in his own way, he makes a difference.

P.M. Sinha (popularly called ‘Suman’), former CEO of PepsiCo India, was a master at such vision sharing. He created what he called an upside-down organization. And his favourite slide in any presentation was the organization chart, which showed the frontline salesmen right on top, with the rest of the organization under them, supporting their efforts. The CEO was right at the bottom of that inverted pyramid, his role being to support the entire organization.

There were other practices too that helped foster this culture of togetherness. There were no bosses or ‘Sirs’. Suman was called Suman by the entire team. Everyone wore identical shirts to work, with the Pepsi logo emblazoned on the pockets, right across their hearts. In every visit to the market, in every conference, Suman made sure that he projected his frontliners as his heroes. In fact, the Pepsi salesman was immortalized in a popular TV commercial featuring Sachin Tendulkar. Remember the genial sardarji scolding Sachin for smashing a ball into the windshield of his Pepsi truck, and then cooling down to say, ‘Oye, relax yaar … have a Pepsi!’?

It isn’t surprising that Suman succeeded in creating a first-rate sales team, where every salesman and every route agent who drove a Pepsi truck saw himself as a hero, out on a battle, ready to kill the enemy (a.k.a. Coke) and make Pepsi the number one cola in the country. In fact, if you stopped a Pepsi truck and asked the salesman what he was doing, chances were high that he’d say he was helping Pepsi win the cola war. Not just ‘selling Pepsi’.

Once, on a visit to the Kennedy Space Center, Florida, to review the progress on his grand vision of putting a man on the moon, charismatic American President John F. Kennedy saw a janitor eyeing him shyly. ‘What do you do here?’ J.F.K. asked her, to acknowledge her presence and strike up a conversation.

Pushing her hair back with her hand, she replied: ‘I am helping America put a man on the moon.’ Indeed, some time after Kennedy ‘shared’ his dream of putting a man on the moon, Neil Armstrong was taking ‘one small step for man, a giant leap for mankind’. And in India, Pepsi took on the world’s most valuable brand, and won.

Behind these successes were armies of salesmen and janitors—stone breakers, if you please—who saw themselves as part of a larger mission. They saw themselves as builders of the world’s tallest cathedral, as people who were making a difference.
And what a difference that made!

‘How do you and your colleagues in the organization perceive your roles? As stone breakers? Or as builders of the world’s tallest cathedral?’