Healthy company culture begets employee motivation

In 2015, a Harvard Business Review article by Lindsay McGregor and Neel Doshi explained the connection between company culture and employee motivation. It cites that global business leaders believe that a strong organisational culture is critical to success.

Morshed Alam, managing director of GroupM Bangladesh, the local operations of the media investment company based in New York, also thinks so. He specifies three reasons behind the critical importance of company culture.

First, it gives the employees a complete clarification of the purpose of their contribution. Then comes the growth potential in an organisation. And finally, it ensures playfulness at the workplace.

"To build a good culture in all GroupM agencies, we work as a family member but act as professionals while dealing with clients," Alam said.

He believes that there must be a control culture in the organisation, but colleagues should never consider it imposed.

"It was obvious for us as there had been some controls in our family. But the Generation Z does not like to be controlled," said Alam, referring to the segment of the population who were born between 1997 and 2015.

The control culture must be inbuilt so that it becomes enjoyable, and everyone embraces it as a learning, he said.

Besides ensuring good company culture, GroupM also focuses on corporate branding to attract more talents.

It brands itself through fairs on university campuses and does direct recruitment. It also welcomes interns, and most of the time, it recruits the best among the group.

The generation, which is beginning their corporate career now, is controlled by society in many ways. But it was not similar for Alam when he was a kid.

"We enjoyed freedom though there were a few rules. It's like whenever it rained, we went to the field to play football. But we're not allowing our child to do that. In that aspect, we were very fortunate," he said.

Alam started his career with Asiatic 3sixty in the late 1990s after completing his MBA. He began in the client service department, which later launched media operations.

The board wanted him in the new media department. At that time, all departments except the client service were considered a thankless job.

"But our chairman Aly Zaker persuaded me, saying: it's your responsibility to make the thankless job a thankful one."

Over the years, the initial four-member media team has evolved under Alam's leadership, and the media relations have changed for good by initiating direct client interaction.

In 2001, Mindshare, an agency of GroupM, entered Bangladesh under a joint venture with Asiatic 3sixty, named Mindshare Bangladesh.

Alam was involved in the venture, and as of 2010, he worked under three Indian general managers. That year, he was given the helm of Mindshare Bangladesh.

In 2013, he became the executive director of GroupM Bangladesh and managing director in 2017.

"The whole thing evolved slowly. I always did my job unconditionally, but it was in my mind that if there were local management after Indians, it should be me," Alam said.

Alam did not stop there. Instead, he diversified the business. Under his leadership, the 34-member Mindshare team of 2010 has now a workforce of 160.

"We always try to do things through a steady process. We proved that in a service business if you deliver quality work without making any compromise, you will grow," he said.

He has also focused on creating leaders.

"I thought that I should not only lead, but I should also create leaders so that I can focus more on the business. Now, four such leaders in GroupM are leading teams that are larger than those managed by the previous general managers."

"The leaders are capable of replacing me and running this whole organisation," he said.

Alam also pushes his colleagues to do beyond their KPIs (Key Performance Indicators) so that they can reach the next heights.

In the growing process, the leader has a distinct role to play—the dissemination of knowledge to the next level.

GroupM organises regular interactive sessions with the people of three media agencies under its operation to disseminate knowledge.

The company also arranges regional and global interactive webinars that are more focused.

Moreover, Alam has created a second layer of leadership in the organisation. Twelve to 13 youngsters are working in the layer, and the interaction with them is allowing the seniors to learn about the generation.

"Dissemination of knowledge is a regular phenomenon in our job."

The life of a corporate leader is challenging. But for the agency business, every challenge is tougher.

"Retaining business is tough than winning a new one. We work round the clock every time we go for a new pitch. But as we work as a team and we have our own culture, we don't feel that challenging," Alam said.

Amidst the challenging times, finding inner peace is hard. But Alam has found his way to deal with the trying times in his work.

"I feel inner peace while I get to do social awareness campaigns for the organisations like Brac or WaterAid."

He formed the Bangladesh Media Forum in 2016 to develop the industry. He is also prioritising corporate social responsibility activities.

In a media agency like GroupM, a collaborative approach is vital, he said. 

"Though we are formally a media agency, we call ourselves investment specialists because we manage our clients' investment in different media," he said, adding that the company acts carefully to create a win-win situation for both clients and media organisations.

In a recent interview, Christian Juhl, global CEO of GroupM, said that the organisation would look like a software company rather than a media agency.

Alam also believes that change is the only constant, and that's what a leader does in an organisation regularly.

"The managers manage regular businesses while I focus on the future and diversification, embracing the changes happening around the world."

The coronavirus pandemic has accelerated digitalisation around the globe. And Alam is well aware of it.

"Transformation is now a popular word worldwide. And if we don't embrace digitalisation, we will become obsolete, and we'll not be able to survive."