MindTree: A Community Of Communities

MindTree A society Of CommunitiesMindTree is a mid-sized 278 million Indian Information Technology menage known for its noesis management pr exerciseices, strong finis and determine, and collaborative communities. Its scheme is to die a caller-up that is consulting-led in the IT services business and intellect property led in the RD-services business. Currently the CEO of the firm has groom an ambitious goal of becoming a $1 billion company by 2014. This requires that employees innovate and create new businesses.How would you characterize the glossiness of MindTree?People-CentricIn an industry where all firms are assumed to possess homogenous skills, MindTree knew that, in order to succeed, it had to differentiate itself from its competitors. The company realized that finish and value were line elements that could be used as Soft Differentiators. Also, being a multicultural company, MindTree realized that it could not possibly manage all the different shades efficiently. Instead, it determined to develop a common set of value which could be share by people from across different cultures. The company has always strived to become an emotionally bonded organization. In this regard, the culture of MindTree can be characterized as a people-centric culture.Value-DrivenAccording to the MindTree senior management, Every MindTree mind is driven by var. Caring, culture, Achieving, Sharing, and Social Responsibility. From this, it is evident that MindTree wanted to create a culture abundant in innovation and creativity. MindTrees emphasis on aspects such as utmost achievement orientation and high caring further shows that MindTree aimed to promote a culture of high completeance, stakeholder responsibility, cooperation and corporate citizenship.Transparent and ParticipativeTransparency and rich, stag converse were cornerstones of the culture. Mindtree incorporated participative decision-making by promoting openness across organizational levels. Thi s resulted in the companys 95-95-95 principle, which verbalise that 95% of the people should have 95% of the information 95% of the time.How has this culture been created and trustd?At MindTree, the managements belief that values drive conduct and behaviour drives results was at the heart of all decision-making processes.Internalizing CLASS ValuesMindtree sought to assign the CLASS values by integrating them into its recruitment, recognition, and reward systems. The process started righteousness from hiring of a new employee, whereby the candidates were assessed on whether they would be a good pit in the organizations culture. New employees then participated in extensive sessions with the senior management, which show the importance of these values in the companys culture. The process continued with performance appraisals, where severally value had a clear metric and 40% weight was delegate to performance a defecatest these values. The success of MindTrees endeavours to inter nalize the CLASS values can be seen from the fact that 90% of the senior leaders voluntarily asked for 360o feedback on how wellspring they were complying with the company values.Other initiatives like rechristening the HR dept. as the people revivify and giving stock options to its employees, have also helped MindTree in imageing and promoting its culture among its employees.Socialization TacticsMindTree has also employed the use of several socializing tactics to foster and institutionalize its culture among its employees. When a new employee joins MindTree, she is abandoned explicit information about the sequence in which she will perform new activities or occupy new roles (Sequential Role Orientation). As employees gain experience, they are allowed to pursue their interests by joining or initiating a friendship (Random Role Orientation).Senior employees at MindTree actively soak up with new hires and act as role models (Serial Tactics). This not only helps MindTree imbibe its core values in the new employees, but also promotes the participative culture within the organization. structure Knowledge CommunitiesKnowledge management was another activity that supported and contributed to MindTrees culture and values. MindTree adopted a holistic, encompassing approach to KM, as it believed that KM could play an integral role in helping people perform their jobs offend and develop themselves, which again reflected on its goal to be a elevated Achievement oriented and High Caring organization.To implement KM a work, MindTree encouraged its employees to self-organize and collaborate through communities of practice. MindTree also took a number of step to build a supportive environment for cultivating KM. The increase and contribution of the KM function has been discussed in detail later in this article.What role does culture play in MindTree Consulting? How does it contribute to strategy of the organisation?MindTree has always believed that its values are one of its core competencies and a key factor which differentiates it from its competitors. At MindTree, its values define its culture and are a cornerstone of decisions concerning time to come strategy.Competitive advantageCore values such as Learning and Sharing have allowed MindTree to develop an extensive intellectual property base, which gives it a clear advantage over its competitors.MindTrees focus on building a people centric, emotionally bonded organization has allowed it to retain its employees, and has also led to high job satisfaction levels among the employees. Together these factors have now contributed to MindTrees success in delivering better service to its clients.Strategic Initiatives95-95-95 principle To ensure transparency and rich, frequent communication, two key elements of culture at MindTree, the management realized that it needful to make information available to its employees. Hence was born the 95-95-95 principle which aims at providing 95% information to 95% employees, at 95% of the time.The Gardener architectural plan As a part of this program, the leaders at MindTree actively engage with employees to develop them into future leaders of the company. The program stems directly from the companys goal to institutionalize its culture and ensure that the core values are carried forward by the next generation of leaders.The 5*50 program MindTrees participative culture and its desegregation with the companys strategy is best(p) highlighted by this program. This initiative called on all MindTree Minds to widen innovative ideas for building new $50 million businesses from scratch. Knowledge direction (KM) would help in the ideation process and would provide critical IT systems support. The fact that MindTree entrusts its employees with resources and encourages them to build businesses, demonstrates the importance of culture in the companys growth strategy.What role have intimacy management practices played in developing and inst illing culture at MindTree?Knowledge Management (KM) refers to the processes, activities and technologies that are specifically aimed at improving organizational performance, by acquiring, organizing, applying, share and renewing both the tacit and explicit intimacy of its employees.KMs role at MindTree, however, is not limited to helping employees perform their jobs better. KM plays a vital role in carrying forward the core values of the firm.KM enables knowledge creation, which leads to innovationKM enables the environment, which leads to knowledge sharing coactionKM enables processes and practices, which helps build a knowledge cultureKM directly enables changes and shifts in mind setsKnowledge CommunitiesMindTrees communities of practice reflect the companys socio-technical approach to KM, which accent social interactions as a means of enabling knowledge sharing and collaboration. A community could have members working in different departments. This ensures that the best pr actices and expertise of various departments go into creating the knowledge repository. It also ensures holistic development of employees who participate in the communities, through interaction with fellow members of varied expertise.Community Maturity LevelsThe first level is a community of interest which is a collection of individuals who share an interest and enjoy talking about it. The important purpose here is sharing.The next level is competency building in which individuals learn from one another in face-to-face meetings.At the terzetto level is capability building which enabled achieving better results in the company by improving existing processes, software and building relationships between communities and other organizational activities.At the highest level was capacity building in which communities would absorb knowledge from external experts and the focus would be on innovation.