This article first appeared in Forum, The Edge Malaysia Weekly, on April 11 - April 17, 2016.

THE Power Distance Index (PDI) is a concept that was introduced by Dutch social psychologist Prof Geert Hofstede to explain the cultural differences in society that highlight the level of deference to authority. Wiki’s definition is “the extent to which the less powerful members of organisations and institutions (like the family) accept and expect that power is distributed unequally”.

Malaysia has the highest PDI (100) in the world, possibly as a result of the colonial times and the legacy of the Malay feudal system. We also seem to have a fondness for the various titles that are given out with regularity by each state and the federal government. It has become customary for titled persons to insist on being called by their titles rather than their given names.

The Hofstede Centre offers this explanation for Malaysia: “Malaysia scores very high on this dimension, which means that people accept a hierarchical order in which everybody has a place and which needs no further justification.” In short, the people in power can expect a high level of compliance from their subordinates.

Presumably, the scores for other Asian countries are also relatively high: 94 for the Philippines; 78 for Indonesia; 77 for India; and 74 for Singapore. The Nordic countries are at the other end of the spectrum, with Norway and Sweden at only 31. The PDI is 40 for the US and 35 for the UK and Germany.

The higher the index, the greater the hierarchy and the less likely that a junior person in that society will be willing to raise issues with a superior. In simple terms, this means that “the boss is always right”. Given this context, it is unlikely that new ideas or suggestions will rise up from lower to senior management. In a discussion, the junior is not going to argue with his senior or any other “important person”. This will hardly create a fertile environment for innovation or a high-performing culture.

It is quite different in an entrepreneurial environment, where discussions, conflicts and debates are judged on the quality of the information and not the title of the protagonist. No wonder then that young people are drawn to work in less traditional companies or start-up environments while employee engagement remains low in the larger companies.

For example, it does seem remarkable that a pilot and co-pilot on a regular flight will not raise the alarm if they are mid-air and are repeatedly asked by air-traffic control to delay a landing. Yet that is exactly what has happened, and more than once too.

In 1997, Korean Air Flight 801 crashed in Malta during an approach to the airport. The investigators determined that the co-pilot was aware of the critical condition of the aircraft, yet was not able or willing to override the decision of the pilot.

Malcolm Gladwell, an author and speaker, in his book, Outliers: The Story of Success, writes about the poor safety record of Korean airlines as a result of that country’s hierarchical society. Hence, the reluctance of the co-pilot to question the decision of the pilot. He goes on to say that once they identified the problem, they were able to fix it.

The importance of learning

It seems pretty obvious that when an organisation or business fails to address the power issue, it remains vulnerable to failure. This is most easily seen in an authoritarian military environment where a subordinate is not likely to challenge a wrong decision made by a superior.

In business, if parts of your organisation are afraid to provide honest, timely feedback, you had better prepare for the end. Typically, entrepreneurs do not have this problem. Ben Horowitz speaks often about his clashes and arguments with Marc Andreessen, his former boss at Netscape and now partner at Andreessen Horowitz, the venture capital fund. So, in an entrepreneurial environment, this is never a problem as the team is focused on getting a result or an outcome through a path that is not certain and hence importance is placed on listening, learning and arguing.

In our search to understand entrepreneurs, through research and over 80 interviews, what we uncovered are what we call nine entrepreneurisms (9Es), which describe what successful entrepreneurship is all about.

Not all entrepreneurs have all the 9Es but one needs at least a few or he is not going to find success. The 9Es are self-efficacy, risk taking, passion, learning, realism, persuasiveness, opportunism, innovation and energy-action-bias.

What is equally interesting is that while these traits might seem to be personal or more natural in start-up companies, they can be successfully adopted by larger companies. However, the 9Es have their own conflicts and tensions. For example, if the company is too grounded in realism, it might miss out on opportunism. To achieve results, the company needs to go through a structured process to identify the required entrepreneurisms and how they can be adopted.

If you are the CEO of a large company, you need to ask yourself this question: Am I circling the airport in my plane, not realising my fuel is about to run out? A chilling thought, indeed. Our suggestion is that you embrace entrepreneurship as a management practice — and do it soon.

Anwar Jumabhoy is an author and speaker on how to bring entrepreneurship into large organisations

Save by subscribing to us for your print and/or digital copy.

P/S: The Edge is also available on Apple's AppStore and Androids' Google Play.