Wednesday, December 18, 2013

Butter Chicken and Organisational Change


What does a young heir of a strictly vegetarian business family do when there’s a minor uprising in his company because employees want to be served meat?

In a recent book titled Reimagining India: Unlocking the Potential of Asia’s Next Superpower, an essay titled ‘Butter Chicken at Birla’, written by Aditya Birla Group chairman, Kumar Mangalam Birla answers this very question as he recounts how his group adapted with the times:

When I took over the company in 1996 at age twenty-nine, after the sudden death of my father, no meat was cooked in Birla cafeterias, no wine or whiskey was served at company functions. Seven years later, we bought a small copper mine in Australia. The deal wasn’t a huge one, worth only about $12.5 million, but it presented me with a unique challenge of the sort I had not yet faced as chairman. Our newest employees were understandably worried about how life might change under Indian ownership. Would they have to give up their Foster’s and barbecues at company events? Of course not, we assured them.

But then several of my Indian managers asked me why they should have to go meatless at parties if employees abroad did not. At Marwari business houses, including Birla, the top ranks of executives traditionally have been filled with other Marwaris. I had introduced some managers from other firms and communities, and they had raised a valid point. I was genuinely flustered. My lieutenants were relentless — I had never faced a situation where my own people felt so strongly about something. Yet, at the same time, I knew vegetarianism was a part of our values as a family and as a company — a core belief! I had broken a lot of family norms, but I thought this one was going to be multi-dimensionally disastrous for me.

Fortunately, my grandparents merely laughed when I approached them with my dilemma: They understood better that our company had to change with the times.

It is a great sign of maturity for an individual as well as a corporation to understand and accept change. And, above all that, to comprehend whether the impending change will be for the good, the bad or just not be significant enough. Well, the AB Group is today one of India’s “most globalised conglomerates with operations in thirty-six countries in five continents, employing 136,000 people”, as Birla describes it.

But can change always be induced so easily?

Look at this case of Arundhati Bhattacharya, chairman, SBI. The more observant of you must have made a mental note of my error in the previous statement and some of you may have smiled, thinking of how habitual terms don’t spare even the most careful. But I must insist that she has been officially appointed chairman, not chairwoman or the more gender-neutral chairperson. This is no gender bias. Very simply- and interestingly- The SBI Act of 1955 provides for ‘Chairman’ as the highest post in the Bank. To call her anything else would actually require an amendment in the act.

So should such a change be initiated? What sort of a change do you think this would be? A major or a minor change? Something with immediate effect or a general adjustment for modern times? And would it impact Ms Bhattacharya’s position or standing in any way?

Your views are welcome.

I think that while it can be initiated just as a correction to accommodate modern realities. It doesn’t, really, adversely impact her position or that of women in general. It doesn’t belittle her in any way. In fact, I am quite sure, around the dinner table it may have provided just a bit of a chuckle. That women are in these positions, itself, speaks for the general trends in the business place.

So should we bring about change or not should be dependent on the expected impact and the cost of the change. We don’t need to sweat over the small stuff.



Monday, December 9, 2013

A Leader dies; A Leader is Born

The past few days have been witness to inspiring tales of two leaders: One who passed on from the physical world, leaving behind a big legacy of belief in the just; one who has only just begun to rise as the hope of lakhs of Indians who seek an idyll of clean governance and an uncorrupted environment.

One of the most telling picture that caught my attention last week was that of a young white man hugging an inconsolable black woman, mourning the death of Nelson Mandela who died at 95, leaving behind a country that is today fair and just, constitutionally; where blacks and whites have accepted that all people deserve an equal chance. Mandela spent 27 years in prison but stayed steadfast in pursuing his dream-- a dream that benefitted millions of people. His long walk to freedom-----become symbolic of the trials and tribulations that lie strewn on a path that only the brave dare to take- a path that is not yet paved, probably never before even treaded upon. Like the hero of the poem, Invictus, that was dear to him, he embodies the unconquerable one, the one who will stay forever to by what he thinks is right.

Three days later, closer home, Arvind Kejriwal won against Sheila Dikshit in a constituency from where she had won the last three elections. This deceptively dimunitive man led his Aam Aadmi Party to near victory in the recent Assembly elections in Delhi and is poised to form a formidable Opposition. Before he adamantly demanded a country free of corruption and accountability about two years back, all of us would have dismissed this as an impossibility in India. Ha! Governance without corruption? An honest political party? That was a contradiction in itself. But today, we all feel the warmth of that ray of hope. There is a sunny summer of hope within the dark winter of doubt.

True leaders believe. And they refuse to accept defeat. They may look very foolish when they start out or till they see some victory. But they aren’t there to make an impression. Their belief overpowers all other senses. And they don’t look behind to look if anybody is following them or not. People follow leaders because they give them the hope to believe that the impossible can become possible. History is full of such stories.

Our weakness or doubt or fear doesn’t allow us to take that courageous step. But when someone rises and seems to embody strength, we like to be awash with that strength and so we follow. We hope that his iron belief will help us rise to our potential too.

So does a leader start out in life wanting to be one? Unlikely. He or she is just one man or woman who is deeply affected by a thing, so much so that he cannot move on till that is resolved. And he is transfixed with the solution or resolution. There’s always a small start. And then the story snowballs and grows bigger and bigger. True leadership comes with a strong belief that mostly belies common sense or realism of its time. If it isn’t big enough to sound a bit impossible, it won’t make history.

A leader is just always a deeply and morally good person. He embodies the highest values and principles and rises far above borders of corporations, nations, castes, creeds, religions. Everyone wants to quickly claim ownership as if to own that reflected glory. But he is above all that- his spirit embodies mankind. He doesn’t measure his own power or reach. He is who he is. Victory doesn’t sway him; defeat makes him more determined.

This brings us to that endlessly debated question: Can, then, leadership be taught? My answer: Taught, maybe not in the traditional sense. But people can be inspired to challenge themselves, to rise beyond the ordinary and aim to realise their dreams. They can be inspired to think big. If people are taken through such lessons, in one mind among the many in that classroom, the seed of another revolution could be taking birth. After all, every great period or transformation started from that one, small story.

Tuesday, November 26, 2013

Rules, Once Again


This week’s news has been dominated by the rape assault by Tarun Tejpal, founder-editor of Tehelka, a publication perceived by many as the voice of the wronged. Tejpal did what ‘the bad guy’, the ‘others’ do. Not ‘people like us’.

Right on its heels came the news of a senior official in the Goa Film Festival, making lewd suggestions and harassing a young journalist.

Rape of course shakes everyone up a lot. But news of gross actions- stealing public money; not letting PDS ration reach the poorest of the poor; taking large kickbacks for political and business favours- don’t even surprise us anymore. Scam is no longer a four-letter word for saturated readers.

This brings me back to my previous post on rules and thinking on it some more. How do people break rules- be they legal or social or moral?

When a person feels powerful by his position, he often begins to believe that he is invincible. Professional achievement, a high level of influence in the big circles often makes him feels that there is no need for him or her to follow rules- that rules are for the rest to follow.

Breaking rules is a high. It is used as a symbol of power. So politicians keep flights waiting, bureaucrats don’t move files without monetary fulfillment and media persons expect differential treatment in the most ordinary of situations. A journalist colleague relates how a very senior bureaucrat once told her- “I can change A.M. to P.M”. ‘A.M’ referred to A&M, the magazine she worked for. She was a novice scribe then and this was her first job. He was letting her know what sort of reach he had. Another entrepreneur involved in an ambitious rehabilitation project in Mumbai told her – I’ve paid off everyone from XYZ to ABC.” He was assuring her that the project would take off without a doubt while impressing upon her, his reach. XYZ and ABC were the head honchos of the most influential political parties of those years.

And for a man enjoying the headiness of power, his crime is never too big in his eyes. 78-year old Om Prakash Chautala, five times CM of Haryana, was sentenced to a ten-year jail term on corruption charges along with his son, Ajay, this January. When the police came to his house to take him he asked the police, “But what did I do?”

That the young girl was an old friend’s daughter and a friend of his own daughter did not stop Tejpal. All he said was that it was ‘an error of judgment’ and he would atone for his act by stepping down from editorship for six months. For anyone else, that would be called a long, paid sabbatical. And other, more ordinary rapists are generally jailed for this.

And when they get caught- often exposed interestingly by a much less powerful person- the first reaction is of extreme anger. Then they flail their hands like caged animals before accepting that sometimes rules can be for the rulers too. Tejpal shouted at the girl the next morning for going and telling his daughter about what had happened. “How could you go and tell my daughter what happened?” he said. This, to him, was the graver misconduct.

People argue that quicker dispensation of justice can help bring down crime rates- and yes, this may be true. Regular people may commit fewer crimes but the powerful will always continue to challenge the rules. The association of power with breaking rules is too heady to ever lose its sway.


Your thoughts?

Monday, November 11, 2013

To Obey or not to Obey?

Rules, that is. This question popped up in my mind, once again, as I was on my flight back to Mumbai and doing what I enjoy most- watching people. The air hostess announced landing and requested everyone to shut their machines and devices. The lady next to me, totally engrossed in her iPad since the moment we started the journey, did not pay attention as her ears were blocked with her headphones. The hostess then came up to her and requested her to comply. She looked up and made a few gestures towards doing so. But as the hostess went away, she continued to play the game she was playing. I itched to tell her that she was doing something with potential to jeopardise the lives of everyone in the plane. Her nonchalance annoyed me.

Well nothing so drastic happened. We landed safely. But I continued to ponder over the issue on the long trek out of the airport. To begin with: Why did that annoy me? I thought it was because someone was disobeying rules. Rules are made for the benefit of people, at large. Few disobedient people can cause trouble for the rest of us. If today, you are not allowed to even carry a nail file in cabin luggage as it a ‘potential weapon’, it’s because someone carried weapons at some time and held up a flight.

A rule breaker can cause direct, fatal damage to others. Highways report serious, fatal accidents every day because of motorists breaking speed limits, driving inebriated or overtaking wrongly. The people killed in these terrible mishaps are often those who got hit by such a rule-breaking driver.

Then there are ‘rules’ which are not in any rule book and not punishable offences. Example: Making a queue at a counter – a rule not really written anywhere I think, but socially desired- is defied and disobeyed by almost every Indian. A queue expands horizontally and becomes many queues and everyone is then for himself. If you’re polite or just not able to push, chances are you’ll be waiting for your coffee till dinner time. Just yesterday, I stood with my token in hand at a doctor’s while a lady without a token just barged in and got her work done before everyone else.

And there are rules which defy logic. Until recently when a prominent industrialist fought in court for his right to fly the national flag atop his home, doing so was a punishable offence. But there’s no penalty on selling and buying uniforms, complete with military insignia, for children to wear for fancy dress competitions. If the first somehow insults the nation, how doesn’t the second, I have often tried to understand. Or, how positions of learning and valour- school and college principals, military chiefs, judges and police commissioners-are caricatured, uncensored.

So should one follow rules completely or reason out which ones to follow or simply follow those that can have a punishment attached for non-compliance? I think most people follow the last type. We follow only the rules that have some sort of penalty attached to them. This doesn’t mean only legal rules. People also follow social rules which are unwritten for fear of rejection or disapproval of their social class.

So people comfortably break traffic rules because they know it costs just a bit of money to get away. Littering or breaking queues doesn’t make you encounter an upturned nose or glares from people around as you would face in say, Britain. So those who walk up to bins in New York, just chuck that chips packet on the road when back in India. We are, however, largely conscious of attending religious functions and ceremonies or office celebrations even if they don’t interest us because that can lead to social rejection.

And then again, History is all about those who broke rules, not about those who followed them. The venerated national leaders are those who refused to follow the rules of the Raj; the greatest scientists are those who refused to accept the norms.?

So should we follow rules or not? What do you think?

Wednesday, April 24, 2013

SUMMER



The Great Bombay Summer has come early this year and has had the whole city panting. And not just that, but the brutality of it is has been felling down even the strongest.

There’s been no respite even in the mornings and evenings. So, for the average office goer, who does at least an hour-long commute to and fro home, this may spell decreasing productivity. Lately I have noticed this in the training room. People are more restless and seem exhausted in the morning too. If they have to commute back from one of those overcrowded railway stations like Kurla and Dadar and the connecting transport is unreliable, the restlessness is even more. They are ready to compromise on the breaks if you could just leave them a bit early so that they can dodge the rush-hour madness.

So what can be done to counter this downer? May be employers can offer efficient transport, at least connections to railway stations, if not all the way home. May be people can work longer hours and take an extra day off instead of coming for half-days on Saturdays. May be offices can give air conditioners as Diwali gifts.

Interestingly, summer lowers productivity in other parts of the world too, though for different reasons sometimes. I learnt this when I was on a scholarship many years back in England. I was interning in a large corporation. Around mid-morning, I happen to look around and notice that there was almost no one in his or her seat. A girl was asking her boss if he had any work for her or could she step out for a couple of hours and he generously said she could take the afternoon off. I asked a colleague to explain what was happening. He told me that it was, after all, summer. After a cold winter the spring had brought a promise of better times. And then suddenly it was summer and the sun was shining. And everyone who wasn’t in his seat that morning, I discovered, was actually outside, in one of the two pubs just down the road, standing and drinking beer and sunning himself. I went back after lunch and found the office as empty. It stayed that way on every sunny day of the few weeks that I worked there.

Tuesday, February 5, 2013

HEALTH IS WEALTH


Over the past one year, I have been repeatedly encountering a medical condition among Indian corporate executives that has startled me. Just how far will the effects of lifestyle go?

Vitamin D deficiency. Shows up as excruciating muscle weakness and bone pain. Back ache, joint pain and lethargy are classic symptoms of Vitamin D and D3 deficiency. Left untreated it can lead to other trouble. Vitamin D deficiency is associated with brittle bones, cardiovascular disease, asthma, autoimmune diseases and even cancer.

Bizarre? When I heard it first I did not quite believe it. Anyone knows that the biggest source of this vitamin is sunlight. In fact it is called the sunshine vitamin. So how could someone living in a tropical country, with the sun pelting down for hours and hours, ever get this deficiency?

My old homeopath explained it to me. This is the latest lifestyle condition. People leave for work early and mostly do not exercise outdoor before leaving. They sit all day inside closed and sealed offices. Few modern offices have any sunlight coming in. Fewer have windows that open. People sit in their cabins or cafeterias and eat. Few step out in the day. Then when they set out for home, it is mostly evening time when the sun has gone down. So there’s basically just no exposure to sunlight among the corporate execs. Even youngsters are increasingly suffering from it. Again, the same reason. Children don’t go out to play enough.

Few foods can replace this source. Vitamin D is available in considerable quantities like fatty fish, cod liver oil and eggs besides fortified milk and dairy products. Most of these foods are not consumed by Indians or, at least, not in the required quantities. To add to it, people try being ‘healthy’ by not eating ‘ghee’ or drinking low-fat milk, thus eliminating Vitamin D even further from their diets. Result: A recent study conducted across 33,444 people shows that 65% of women in Mumbai in the age group of 12- 35 years are Vitamin D deficient.

So here we seem to have a growing problem that can easily be contained. People could be made aware of this and take small, easy steps to avoid this trouble. A short walk before leaving for office? A late afternoon walk out of office instead of the tea machine chat? And probably adding ‘ghee’ and eliminating junk food? Of course, many of the usual excuses will pop up immediately to this. Meetings, presentations, no time….can’t help order outside foodstuff sometime or the other.

But health is a good enough reason to find solutions for, instead of hiding behind the usual reluctance to change. And any medical practitioner will tell you that preventive care is better than curative steps. Now don’t you think it’s worth considering at least?

Wednesday, January 16, 2013

Keeping It Simple



Only last week I was arguing with myself for days about the complexity of life around me, may be with a generous dose of self-pity. And in the most unexpected of ways, I found myself looking into the face of an answer. A very simple one at that, which left no space for my self-indulgence.

The answer came through my colleague. She had just listened to Venugopal Dhoot addressing school children. This is what she said:

I was listening to Venugopal Dhoot of Videocon addressing 700 school children who were there to impress a big media group and get the chance to become journalists for their school newspaper. Dhoot was introduced as the big man of business with a lot of social and community work attributed to him. But he came and spoke with disarming straightforwardness. He was comfortable not being proficient in English. He described his modest background to the students and told them that they were very bright. He spoke and quoted from the Bhagvad Geeta, his biggest source of inspiration. And he gave absolutely simple answers when they asked him cleverly-framed questions.

What philosophy has guided him to do so well in the field of business? He said that Vinoba Bhave was his greatest inspiration and taught him the principle of ‘karma yoga’.

What’s his success mantra? Hard work. Easy to say, hard to do.

What made him think of electronic goods? You must have a passion for what you do. I was an engineer and loved engineering products. When I worked with Toshiba as an intern the video was the latest gadget. I simply wanted to bring it to India.

How did you decide on products as you went along? Products have to be liked by customers. He described here the failure of a prestigious dog biscuit company in a market. Simply, dogs didn’t like their biscuits!

How different are you as a person and as a professional? You cannot have two sets of values. Personal and business values have to be the same.

So how does he predict the markets? I don’t. I know very little. Nobody can predict the markets. Here he quoted his favourite flautist Bismillah Khan who said when asked about his achievements, “Abhi toh teen taal ka bhi gyaan nahi hua hai.”

For a small- town boy who wanted to study literature and play the flute, Dhoot took off in quite an unexpected direction. But life’s like that. He continues to simply perform his daily tasks and follow the path he set upon. No existentialist doubts. No grand, intellectual arguments. Simple now, isn’t it?