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.

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.