Case study: Blue Ocean Leadership in prison management Luciano Pezzotta Blue Ocean Leadership case study Imagine the largest jail in the Asia-Pacific, a complex located near New Delhi serving over 7,200 inmates as against a sanctioned capacity of a little more than 2,200. Now envision its security and management systems, dating back even beyond the colonial era, and prisoners leading a suffocated life, with unhygienic conditions and poor quality food, scarcity of water and frequent epidemics. The prison has a staff of nearly 600 workers. This number of employees is meant to service the needs of the sanctioned capacity, and not almost four times that count. The majority of the jailers are barely literate and many do not even know how to count properly, thus affecting their capacity to perform even basic duties such as doing the prisoners’ head- count. Corruption is prevalent across all areas of the Jail, from a poisoned Administration which dispenses unfair visitation privileges, to the provision of the most basic supplies. In several cases, the situation is serious enough to warrant penalties and long periods of suspensions. In addition, many staff members perform their duties with a sense of vengeance on the system to inflict as much harm as they can. Such were the conditions of Tihar Jail that Kiran Bedi, the first woman officer who joined the Indian Police service in 1972, found when she was appointed Inspector General (Pris- on) on May1st 1993. Nevertheless, by the time she left her post two years after being at the helm, Tihar was a dramatically transformed jail. Unhealthy and unhygienic conditions were radically reduced. Food, water and overall liv- ing conditions were substantially improved. The prison went from widespread drug abuse to being declared a non-smoking jail. Over 300 NGOs and voluntary groups were involved in delivering an array of positive activi- ties to ensure the rehabilitation and development of both inmates and staff. These includ- ed moral and spiritual education, legal aid and vocational training, yoga and Vipassana, an introspective meditation programme that helped prisoners maintain good physical and mental health. A “mobile petition box” was created to provide inmates with an opportunity to voice their grievances and bring these to the attention of the authorities. The Prisoners’ Panchayat (Cooperative) System was also initiated. It comprised of self-administered assemblies formed by inmates in each ward to organize and provide support and development ser- vices including medical aid, education and sport activities. Previously incompetent and demotivated staffs were transformed into a committed and entrepreneurial workforce, also due to the creation of a team spirit supported by better living and working conditions, professional development programs and greater accounta- bility. Corruption was eliminated, not only by enforcing new policies and control, but more im- portantly by creating additional income opportunities for both staff and inmates. For in- stance, a filter-manufacturing unit was opened where family members of prison staff could work to supplement their household income. Even more important than these management initiatives, a sense of hope, respect and dignity pervaded the atmosphere of the life in jail. Praying and playing together on a daily basis became the norm. The exceptional turnaround brought about at the Tihar Jail, was recognized by the Ramon Magsaysay Award (also called the Asian Nobel price) assigned to Kiran Bedi in 1994. How could a five-foot and 55 kg woman alone make all this possible? First and foremost, it required a strong commitment to contribute to the reform of the inadequate Indian crimi- nal justice system as described by Rajeev Peshawaria in his “Too many bosses, too few leaders”. But not less importantly, Kiran Bedi adopted a leadership approach that shifted 2 © All Rights Reserved Blue Ocean Leadership case study her own time and efforts towards a very different set of activities as compared to her predecessors. When Kiran Bedi took over the administration of the jail, her office was a 20 x 15 foot room without a view infested with rats and insects. Previous Inspector Generals never vis- ited the jail and instead did their paper work from home, regarding themselves as too im- portant to be working from a lowly prison office. Their approach to prison management was hierarchical and designed to comply with bureaucratic requirements, rather than to improve jail conditions. Their focus was on entertaining senior decision makers to protect themselves against any political backlash that might ensue from frequent riots and epi- demics. In addition, previous Inspector Generals strived to maintain secrecy. Media had never been allowed free access for fear that a constant flow of negative publicity would affect the image of the jail Administration. Only discretionary “news” was allowed through “friend- ly” journalists and as a result outsiders were completely unaware of the dire conditions inside the jails’ massive iron gates. Kiran Bedi changed all this. Firstly, although prior to her arrival Tihar was considered a hopeless repository and a well-deserved punishment for Indian criminals, she created the vision of turning Tihar into an ashram, a place for rehabilitation and development. To make this possible, Kiran Bedi strived to create a direct and sincere human connection with both inmates and staff at all levels. Whenever she visited the different jails, she would take time to greet the inmates and interact spontaneously with them. In addition, she regularly participated in activities attended by inmates such as the Vipassana medita- tion course. From the moment she took charge, although reporting mechanisms and regular review meetings with staff at all levels were already in place, she developed an action-oriented and accountable administration which in turn could effectively identify and solve issues. Rather than relying solely on reports from her managers, Kiran Bedi used direct observa- tion by participating in daily walking rounds daily at the different jails. This ground level observation provided invaluable insight into the current state of affairs and improvement opportunities. It also provided the chance to verify if corrective actions were being fol- lowed-up and implemented. Throughout her tenure, Kiran Bedi fostered a collaborative environment, constantly calling for informal meetings, from lunch and tea with intimate audiences, to full staff meeting at all levels. During these meetings, she would share her views and explain the motivation and rationale for the adoption of changes. She would also encourage the staff to express their opinions freely and frankly. Kiran Bedi also got involved in designing action plans that adhered to explicit deadlines and personally followed upon a number of initiatives. This included the petition box, where she would go through all the petitions each night and write reply cards with instruc- tions or a response to be sent to the petitioners the next day. The extent of Kiran Bedi’s change in key leadership activities can be appreciated through the leadership canvas, a chart that visualizes the key activities the Inspector General fo- cused on before and after she joined Tihar jail. However, other than reshaping her own activities, a major success factor was Kiran Bedi’s capacity to stimulate the committed collaboration of the prison management. In particu- lar, she was able to identify the changes that would bring the best out of every jail officer and achieve high impact by redirecting how time and effort was spent by both manage- ment and front liners. 3 © All Rights Reserved Blue Ocean Leadership case study To understand how this was possible, we will first look into the jail’s senior and middle management, comprised of the Deputy Inspector General, Superintendents, Deputy Super- intendents and Assistant Superintendents. Prior to Kiran Bedi’s arrival, instead of taking interest in improving the jail conditions, of- ficers focused on pleasing external political bosses to protect themselves from judicial en- quiries, suspensions or dismissals. This also included serving the needs of prominent pris- oners. In fact, when politically protected individuals got incarcerated in Tihar, jail man- agement would receive instructions to attend to the special needs of such inmates. If such “requests” were turned down, the officer concerned would become vulnerable. Jail officers were also more concerned with pursuing individual visibility to strengthen their political relevance than attending to the affairs of the prison. During all functions inside the prison which received publicity for example, senior officials would invariably be present to be photographed. As a result, day-to-day management was left in the hands of the lower ranks; however, if there was an error, epidemic or riot, senior officials would be calling for explanations or worse, ordering enquiries, post-mortems, suspensions or dismis- sals. Officers spent an inordinate amount of time producing reports that justified all the mis- haps and accidents which occurred, emphasizing resources constraints and the other limi- tations that the jail faced. They did this in part to protect their position, in case a judicial enquiry was ordered. Nevertheless, Superintendents and other officials were often com- pelled to appear before magistrates and judges because of incidents such as riots, detri- mental media reporting or inmates appealing to the courts for their conditions inside the jail. This was highly stressful and time consuming. The transformation of senior and middle management activities initiated by Kiran Bedi started by enforcing punctuality to create discipline. Until now, regular briefings were un- heard of. Kiran Bedi initiated the practice of asking prison management to hold regular meetings to discuss improvement opportunities and verify the progress of initiatives previ- ously launched. 4 © All Rights Reserved Blue Ocean Leadership case study Officers had previously rarely visited jails. This changed and they were involved in daily ground observations, to personally witness prisoners’ grievances and identify opportunities for improvement.