Should the Indian Bureaucracy Learn to Say No to "Yes Sir/Madam"?

Case I: It's all in the Name

August 2004. It was our first week at Oracle, a multinational software company. We were told that we were supposed to call everyone by name - the first name would suffice. No substitutes or suffixes such as Sir or Madam.

We were fresh out of university, and it was our first experience, working in an MNC. We could not accept it immediately; despite the instruction, we addressed some seniors as Sir and were promptly corrected 2-3 more times, before we adopted the cultural norm of the organization. And yes, having adopted it, we were quite happy and comfortable using it. We soon realized that there were no exceptions to the rule whatsoever; even the CEO (then Larry Ellison) used to be addressed as Larry, by everyone.

Case II: What's in a Name? It's all in the Rank

October 2014. It had been more than a year since I joined Indian Information Service, as a developmental storyteller (so to say), in Government of India. I happened to call someone senior to me in the organization as "Ms. Namita" (name changed). The "Ms" was rather feeble, duly compensated by the emphatic reply: I am your senior, you shall not call me Namita, you have to call me Ma'am.

(I have the highest regard for this senior lady officer; however, I am not disclosing her name, lest I happen to embarrass her. Though she does not need to be embarrassed, she was just trying to enforce a cultural norm).

Though I clarified that there was a Ms. which seem to have left unheard, the message was loud and clear. In fact, I was a fool to have been such a slow learner - of the Government culture.

Fast forward to July 2016. While speaking to a senior officer, I happened to refer to a Minister by her (full) name, raising a question mark not only in the officer's mind but also on his face. Well, I am a very slow learner indeed.

The Manifestations of Organizational Hierarchy

Why do you think Oracle and Government of India differ so much in this cultural norm? It is not because the latter is a more hierarchical organization (Oracle too is a hierarchical organization, though not as much as Government). I think it is rather because of the different ways in which hierarchy manifests itself in the daily work lives of their employees.

In Oracle, the hierarchy is manifested largely in functional ways - in reporting relationships; in other words, in facilitating distribution of tasks among various levels and in enforcing their completion. In Government too, the functional manifestation is a towering reality; however, unlike Oracle, in Government, what was designed arguably as a solely functional tool has come to have huge cultural and even social spillovers. Of course, the influence has been bidirectional - the social and cultural history of India has played a big role in both the origin and entrenchment of these spillovers. 

We can reflect on these externalities in another post; for the moment, let us focus on just the facet of Sir/Ma'am - an apparently small yet strongly emblematic example.

Sir/Ma'am: The Grammar of Indian Bureaucracy

It is my bet that a content analysis of the everyday conversations involving bureaucrats would assign a very big cloud to Sir/Ma'am. More spoken sentences than one would imagine tend to sport either Sir or Ma'am somewhere. And especially while giving explanations, the word tends to accompany even individual clauses. Further, Sir/Ma'am is a valid and oft-used sentence, in its own right. 

Now, the last part especially is something that disturbs me. Let me clarify.

The Slippery Slope: From Sir/Ma'am to Yes Sir/Ma'am and beyond

I hate being forced - culturally - to call all seniors as Sir/Ma'am. I would have preferred - and perhaps even loved! - to do it as per my own volition. However, I can tolerate this - I am tolerating it! But more than the personal discomfiture, I am disturbed by the apparent deleterious consequences of this cultural norm. 

Hypothesis: The cultural norm of Sir/Ma'am in the Indian bureaucracy leads to a significant increase in conformance and groupthink, thereby reducing the quality of executive decisions.

Note: In the absence of research backed by evidence, I am only advancing this as a hypothesis, not an assertion. Yes, but I do suspect that this holds, backed by anecdotal experiences.

Yes, the Sir/Ma'am is all too often Yes Sir/Ma'am. We pride ourselves on being the world's largest democracy; however, democracy seems to be in rather shortly supply (and demand) within the bureaucracy. Indeed, the system (technically) gives sufficient room for dissent. However, the organizational and cultural elements of the system tend to make people behave differently - for superiors to demand consent, and subordinates to supply it. 

Often, projects of grand scale that are guided not by the right motives are executed, because someone somewhere bent down to an unequivocal Yes. By adopting a cultural vocabulary that is prejudiced against alternate voices, the Indian bureaucracy seems to amplify the innate tendency of individuals and groups to dance to the voices of power - often scuttling organizational effectiveness. Even those superiors who venture to take decisions in a participatory fashion have to go to the extra mile to convince their team that No Sir/Ma'am is acceptable and even welcome.

Besides thus contributing to poor decision-making, the external projection of the Sir culture from within the organization to the societal sphere has contributed in increasing social distance between the public servant and the citizen. In our culture, we carry our professional identity everywhere - even outside work. Due to this, a Sir in bureaucracy often remains a Sir on the street as well - thereby influencing the power relation that would be established in the social sphere.

Sir/Ma'am: A Functional Necessity for the Indian Bureaucracy?

Despite the above, I am not quite arguing for an abandonment of this norm. Not yet. The norm cannot be viewed in isolation; a holistic approach needs to be taken. One that appreciates the vitality of this norm in sustaining the executive machinery of the Government, given the current situation.

In my assessment and experience, the Government system relies heavily on authority in eliciting organizational performance. It is a system that is sustained more by stick than by carrot. A private sector organization where individual progress is strongly dependent on performance would find it suitable to have an open and non-hierarchical culture. On the other hand, a system where variance in individual career progression is minimal would be more dependent on such soft forms of power.

Also, it is often said that the bureaucracy has been so designed to ensure stability. This putative bias towards continuity as opposed to change is also one factor which seems to favour the continuance of the Yes Sir/Ma'am culture. 

Though I believe that change is the only permanent thing, and that the Government too needs to innovate continuously (here is why), and should therefore look at institutionalizing continuous change and innovation, not eternal stability. Which is why I believe Yes Sir/Ma'am is an innovation killer in the Government (you can find many more killers here).

Postscript: My personal Sir/Ma'am policy

I do call seniors as Sir/Ma'am. However, this has no correlation with the respect I have for them. One may have the highest regard for someone and yet may call him by name; and one can call someone Sir/Ma'am, and yet give him nothing more than the basic respect one gives all human beings in general. (This is another issue I have with this culture; it concentrates more on show of respect, rather than respect itself).

And I have often encouraged my juniors to call me by name, to not regard me principally as a senior. But yes, it is often awkward to say this in our current culture, and many don't follow my advice anyway.

Your Thoughts

So, what do you think? Do you agree with my hypothesis? Is Yes Sir/Ma'am desirable? Or should we learn to say no to it? Requesting your invaluable views. Thank you.