Business Leaders Should Walk The Talk

Today's Corporate Dossier carries a story on how the young bunch of managers at Airasia - the latest low-cost airline about to be launched in India - are actually  living the philosophy of 'low-cost'. 29 year-old Gangtok-born Ningku Lachungpa is in charge of the ancillaries.As part of shoring up ancillary revenues, she is doing her bit to understand every discipline to live up the tagline of making more people fly. As part of this effort, Lachungpa takes the suburban train every morning from near the airport, where she lives, to her spartan 600 sq.ft. office, situated atop a mall."When I come to the office in a taxi, I don't put down that down in the office expense as each of us are aware that even a Rs. 10 saving is a saving."

Similarly, when Aditya Ghosh, CEO of leading low-cost airline Indigo and his boss Rahul Bhatia, MD, had to go for a meeting of the private airlines' captains with the Prime Minister, they travelled in a small, unassuming hatchback. 

Indigo Airlines CEO Aditya Ghosh (L) and MD Rahul Bhatia (R)

The rest came in their fancy limos.

Living the management philosophy

In the Puranas, as mythologist Devdutt Pattanaik, explains, Vaikuntha, the abode of Vishnu, is the land of happiness. It is a playground or ranga-bhoomi and is described as a place which attracts Laxmi, the goddess of wealth. Vishnu always attracts wealth and is popularly worshiped as Shri-nath or Tiru-pati which means lord of affluence and abundance. On the other hand, Indra the king of the devas, who resides in his paradise, Swarga, is constantly chasing Laxmi, and trying to prevent the asuras from taking her away.The fundamental difference between Vishnu and Indra is that Indra thinks only of himself and his shareholders. They all feel entitled, like shareholders. On the other hand, Vishnu thinks of everyone - his employees, customers, shareholders, vendors, society at large, in other words - stakeholders. Thus ensuring affluence and abundance.

At times, business leaders and senior executives forget that the people they lead are closely watching their every move and action.  When leaders start living out the key brand proposition and what their company stands for, with actions such as the ones cited above, it can go a long way in inculcating an ideal organizational culture. A culture which results  in more sales, more growth and more profits, making every stakeholder - employees, customers, shareholders, vendors, society at large happy!

So, would you like Vishnu, attract wealth, or like Indra, chase it? The choice is yours.

Hi-5s to Your Business Improvement

Every day, newspapers and TV news channels in India keep telling us of the dark clouds of political uncertainty in West Asia and North Africa, unemployment in the US and the Greek debt. And then there are the ominous whispers that more news – bad of course – on the debt front from Italy and Spain. Are things really that bad? Is it all gloom and doom?

The Economic Times recently surveyed 22 CEOs of large businesses to rank 10 issues on a ‘headache scale’ of 1 to 10, where 1 stood for the ‘least headache’ and 10 for the ‘worst headache’. The most important conclusion of the study was that in India, consumer demand would continue, that top line growth would remain intact and that we can weather a global crisis. This will come as good news to all those business leaders who may have started to grow jittery, hearing all the global bad news. So then, what does Indian business need to worry about - if at all? It is the high input costs which could end up hurting their profits. And it is this situation of shrinking margins that is likely to give business heads, especially from the SME sectors, sleepless nights. And sleepless nights, as we all know, can lead to rash decisions. So what should they do to deal sensibly with the current situation?

In my experience of working with owner-managed businesses I have noticed that most, if not all of them, are so deeply operationally involved in the day-to-day managing of their businesses that they rarely give time and thought to put in place a long-term directional view of their businesses. Renny Thomas, of McKinsey & Co attributes this neglect to the fact that up until recently, India was in a period where lack of a meticulously planned strategy did not matter as much since the growth areas were obvious. But with increasing competition from Chinese and other foreign competitors, coupled with shrinking margins, business heads have realized that it is no longer enough to go with the flow. It’s time to move beyond the present and start planning the future with purpose and intent and desired results in mind.   

So where do you begin? Here are five ways to kick-off your change process:


1. Assess Your Company’s Current Status: Put everything on the table, both the good and the bad. Include areas of the business you are proud of and problems you wish would just go away. Address issues relating to staff, products and services, location, profitability, and new business development.

Hi-Fives to Your Business Success



2. Review The Past: Look carefully at your past marketing efforts, successes, and failures. If you are running a marketing program but cannot justify its expense with increased sales, consider cancelling it or placing it on hold. Successful marketing turnarounds stop the bleeding quickly.



3.  Analyze Competitive Activity: Often, a new entry in a market will use new marketing techniques and follow new thinking to achieve sales that you didn’t know were possible. Evaluate objectively, to achieve a successful marketing turnaround, you must do what is best for your company.

3. Rethink Your Business: Keeping your learning from the earlier three steps in mind, think again, about current customers, competition, industry changes, and technology. Rethink your business model. Many successful businesses have managed to stay successful by moving with the times. They saw that the needs of their customers were changing and acted accordingly. Be flexible to adjust to new opportunities and challenges.

5. Be Quick. Act quickly on your plans to marry the short-term to the long-term. Speed and flexibility are essential in turning a company around.

And don’t give up - giving up too early may result in your falling short of the great success your business was destined for.Act consistently and diligently on the five ways and you could have success dancing on the palm of your hand!

And in case you need help; I have more than10,000 hours of Buisness coaching experience of supporting business-owners such as you. I can help you reach your business goals faster, achieve higher and become stronger! For contact details click on Contact tab above.

Decoding the Desi Dynamic

With more and more Indian executives being posted abroad - especially in booming sectors such as IT, Pharma and FMCG, Indian companies have felt an increasing need for the chosen people to be trained in the culture and the ways of the country of posting. This has meant the rise of a new breed of trainers in culture and special classes for country specific culture training to help such executives fit smoothly into their new roles.

But have we ever stopped to think about the Indian manager who is about to take up a position outside his native state? Have we ever thought of the need for training such individuals to quickly settle down into their new roles they are about to take up? Why do I say this? Hear what some expat CEOs have to say. Kwon of Samsung believes serving in India is like serving in many countries. Michael Bonham, who is the Ford India CEO supports this view. When he shifted to Delhi after spending nearly three years in Chennai, he actually thought he had shifted to a "different country."  So how does one go about learning about these countries within a country and our cultural traits and attitudes?  How does one go about decoding what the Economic Times calls the desi dynamic? Learn from the experiences of expat CEOs posted on Indian shores. Why? Because they notice things which we as Indians don't and they put a light on attitudes which we take for granted.

For many of us our attitudes and beliefs about different communities are the cultural stereotypes handed down to us from our parents and friends, (the Bong is sentimental, the North Indian is aggressive etc). And these become the drivers influencing our behavior and responses to people from these communities which can come in the growth path of executives who aspire for leadership roles. For, as Jacques Challes the Managing Director of L'Oreal puts it, "India is about the future of business." Moreover Challes believes that in India "you are constantly building" unlike his own country France, where everything is static. Since the business of business is primarily about managing people, and the Indian environment is one of constant change, where do we begin? With one of Challes observations.

Challes has observed that the power distance between the field staff and the highly educated managers at headquarters, is so big, that they are not able to communicate effectively. The loss in translation is the reason why strategies created at the top are often not executed efficiently in the field.

The Indian manager has a unique set of attitudes, knowing which, can help us grow quickly in our leadership roles

So how can managers cut this loss in translation? How can s/he improve execution of his or her painstakingly planned strategies? The learning about the desi dynamic of the expat CEO trying to settle down into his leadership role in India, holds important lessons for us. 

Yves Martinez of Legrand has discovered that its not enough to set targets and issue instructions to his managers you have to take time to convince the internal teams. "...people want to understand what they are doing, they want to take time over it." 

Benoit Lecuyer, the MD of Hager Electro believes that management in India is more personal and therefore managers have to make people the centrepiece of business and life. Instead of calling large meetings with 50 people, they should call the managers for one-to-one discussions. This  helps the manager and his senior to get to know one another better.

Kiminobu Tokuyama CEO of Nissan Motors seconds this view when he observes that Indian managers are rich with ideas and views but in business meetings, they do not express any disagreement with their bosses. "My constant effort," he says. " is to create an atmosphere of mutual respect, trust, confidence and fearlessness and thereby enable free flow of honest opinion from all."

A very important insight comes from Neil Mills, CEO of Spicejet. He calls for dealing with people as individuals and not as members of a community. He believes that there is no such thing as a common Indian culture, for instance, a person with a south Indian name could be more north Indian, because he has lived in Delhi all his life. This means one has to tailor the way instructions are given to people based on their divergent backgrounds and not as a Marwari, Tamilian, Bengali etc.

So there you have it - the desi dynamic decoded. Now to set about internalizing and validating the observations in our corporate lives and leadership roles.

How clear are you about your 2011 goals?

 A recent  issue of the Economic Times, had an article, "India Inc Has A Dream For 2011", in which prominent captains of the industry spoke of their personal and business goals.

Having just completed a workshop on "The Effective Manager" for a client, of which effective goal setting was part, I was curious to analyze the goals for their "SMARTness". SMART, as many of you  may know, is an acronym for Specific Measurable Achievable Realistic Timebound. How well had the captains of industry fared when it came to setting SMART goals for 2011? I decided to analyze the goals of two of them - Vijay Thadani, CEO of NIIT and Venugopal Dhoot, Chairman of the Videocon group of industries. Here is what they had said:

Vijay Thadani: "I sincerely want to reduce the schoolgoer's burden and make their bags lighter by a tenth. Our school solutions division, NIIT eguru, which works with 15,000 schools, could help children carry tablets instead of books, and we can achieve this through customised offerings. My second resolution is to reach 20m more learners this year and take the count to 50m as NIIT turns 30 this year. Cutting across verticals, from corporates schools, colleges individuals and the government, I want to double the target which took the company three decades to cover."

Venugopal Dhoot: "I see 2011 ushering in social well-being  and economic prosperity for the aam Indian. Poised to become the world's fastest growing economy, the coming decade will see the rise and rise of India towards becoming a superpower in its own right. Not through just material power, but through 'soft power', that is, the ability to influence and impact the world through its unique culture, values, policies, and institutions. In such a context my New Year resolution will be to do my bit, both at personal and industry level, to drive this 2020 vision forward."

For the purpose of analysis, I decided to score them on each of the SMART parameters on a scale of 1-10, where 1 was very vague, and 10 very specific. Here is how the fared:

Score             Name	Specific	Measurable	Action oriented	Relevant	Timebound
	Who What Where Why When	How much? How often? How many?		How important is it to your business?	By When?
Vijay Thadani	10/10	10/10	10/10	10/10	10/10
V.N Dhoot	2/10	3/10	3/10	5/10	6/10

Here's my rationale for my scoring:

Specific: Vijay Thadani (VT) 10/10, Venugopal Dhoot (VD) 2/10
VT: We see that VT has covered all the important bases for this parameter - What (reduce the school goers burden, double the target), Why (make their bags lighter), Where (in 15,000 schools and across verticals), When (by the end of the year).
VD: He has resolved to "do his bit" - vague enough to get a score of 2/10.

Measurable: VT 10/10, VD 3/10
VT: VT's resolution answers the How much? question specifically (make school goers bags lighter by a tenth, reach out to 20m more learners, double the target achieved in 3 decades),
VD: VD's resolution to "do his bit" is just a resolution and no more. How can such a subjective target be measured? He therefore scores 3/10 on this parameter.

Action-oriented: VT 10/10, VD 3/10
VT: His resolutions on this parameter are totally action oriented because they are both specific and measurable. He talks about cutting across verticals, from corporates, schools, colleges, individuals and government to double his target.
VD: He wants to drive forward the 2020 vision of making India a superpower in its own right by influencing its ability to influence and impact the world through its unique culture, values, policies, and institutions by doing "his bit both at the personal and industry level".  How action-oriented can that be?

Relevant: VT 10/10, VD 5/10
VT: NIIT is in the business of training and education and his resolutions aimed at the school goer and other verticals are entirely relevant to his business.
VD: Here I have been a little more generous with my scoring by giving VD 5/10 - the only reason being that in the broad sweep of his resolution, he also talks somewhere about doing his bit to help India impact the world through its institutions. One presumes by institutions he means his own group of companies.


Time-bound: VT 10/10, VD 6/10
VT: Clearly all his 2011 goals, except for the doubling of sales, are aimed for achievement by end of 2011 hence a 10/10.
VD: The saving grace is that the resolution is at least time bound - by 2020 (for whatever it is worth), and hence in this parameter VD gets the highest score of 6/10!

All of us make New Year resolutions and many of us make them more as a ritual, only to forget all about them a few days into January. If one is serious about acting on one's resolutions, it helps to set SMART goals. For then we can :

1. focus our attention and action, 
2. mobilize our energies towards their achievement, 
3. increase our persistence, and 
4. encourage development of workable strategies 

towards the successful  attainment of our goals.

And by the way, any guesses about who between Vijay Thadani and Venugopal Dhoot is better placed to achieve his goals for 2011?

Indian firms losing leaders!

There is worrying report in yesterday's Hindustan Times, a B-school study shows that there is a serious downfall of leadership in Indian companies.

The findings of the study, conducted by Pune's Symbiosis indicate that in the past two years, a lot of people in leadership roles at all levels, have either switched jobs or been laid off. When such roles are offered to existing employees, they find excuses to reject the offer. The reason? Lack of investment  by Indian companies in grooming them to become leaders and bringing in people from outside to fill leadership roles.As a direct result of their neglect of developing and investing in the potential of their own employee, they find themselves low on confidence in taking on leadership roles.

According to Mr K.S. Subramanian, the director of Symbiosis, neglecting to groom employees to become leaders results in them display  'stopping behaviour' where their mindset stops growth. "The self awareness to rise up the ranks is missing," says the director.

As an Executive/CEO coach, I have noticed this neglect of grooming employees for leadership roles at first hand. A few companies who do invest, do so on the conduct of training programs, the objectives and design of which are little related to leadership grooming.

As an Executive/CEO coach, my prime objective is to build my client's self awareness by offering a mirror to himself . I do this by initiating the coaching process with a focus on Leading the Self. Only after this do I move on to the other two leadership domains - Leading the People and Leading the Organization. This inside-out approach proves extremely valuable in enlarging the self-awareness of clients, and helps them engage better with their external world .

One of my clients after a coaching session, said to me, "Uday I realize now that I have been spending only 0.5% of my time on my most important priority - communicating my vision to my team!" 

Imagine what that one single insight can do to a leaders effectiveness!