The Great Debate – Uniform Behaviors

Interloop Way – People team has been working on improving the organizational culture following the launch of Uniform Behaviors (UB) manual in Jun 2019. This manual has been developed as a complete guide for six behaviors about conducting business across the organization. For implementing these behaviors as a sustainable roadmap, ‘The Great Debate’ was an interactive session, organized at Interloop Executive Club on Sep 28. Company’s higher and middle management was invited for attending the pilot session. Navid Fazil, CEO Interloop Limited, Muhammad Maqsood, Group CFO and Tariq Rashid, President Yarns & Sourcing were also among the audience.

Setting the mood of the session, the guest speaker, (Retd) Athar Sajid; an Aeronautical Engineer, advancing as a professional motivational speaker, deliberated the importance of Uniform Behaviors impacting personal & professional growth. He established that practicing Uniform Behaviors leads to mutual trust, measuring success, performance management, succession planning, continuous learning & improvement.

Hasnain Abbas, Head of Interloop Way – People, moderated the next segment by introducing the two topics chalked out for discussion: Challenges in Implementing Uniform Behaviors & How to reward good behaviors and challenge bad behaviors?

Two teams, ANGEL’s ADVOCATE & DEVIL’S ADVOCATE were invited and briefed for debating, challenging and identifying risks and proposing solutions in support of and against the defined topics. The idea was enticing and engaging the audience in a healthy discussion.

ANGEL’S ADVOCATE team comprised of Saeed Ahmed, Head of Plant 5; Muhammad Shahzad, Head of Plant 2; Faryal Sadiq, VP Hosiery & Marketing and Brig. Ahmad Riza Siddiqi (Retd), Executive Director. The DEVIL’S ADVOCATE team consisted of Aqeel Ahmad, AVP People & OD; Tayab Masood, Managing Director IL Apparel; Kamran Akhtar, DGM Marketing and Quratulain Shahid, Sr. Manager Corporate Communication.

Both teams put forward strong arguments and discussed key areas such as employee resistance in accepting Uniform Behaviors, communication challenges at different levels of the organization, the role of top management in multiple scenarios, over rewarding and discouraging bad behaviors in an organization.

Q&A session with the audience was arranged after closing the debate. Several thought-provoking questions were asked and some good suggestions also came up as key points of discussion. Towards the end, the CEO insisted on the importance of honest contribution by every employee for adopting and exhibiting Uniform Behaviors in their personal and professional lives,  as behavior is the basis of every culture. He appreciated the guest speaker and the Interloop Way – People team for all the effort they put in for making it a true learning experience.