Khabri, Kaikeyi, Khata, Kaash – And The Boss
Kaikeyi is an important character in the Indian epic – Ramayana. More importantly, do you know Manthara in that story?
Without Manthara, the Ramayana might have not had the long twists and turns it does. But what’s that got to do with Indian family businesses?
Businesses, led by promoters in India, and family businesses in particular, have many idiosyncratic and interesting characteristics. These could be flawed but fabulous, amusing but adorable, messy but man-made, irreverent but important, but not ignorable. A few peculiar ones— Khabri (informer) and Khata (old-fashioned daily accounts of profit and loss)— relate to how information flows to the promoters with their interesting, often less-well-appreciated consequences.
*Kaikeyi— a boss who suffers from Khabri’s influence.
If you are familiar with the epic of Ramayana you would recall queen Kaikeyi’s personal servant Manthara. She arguably played the most important role in the epic. Manthara heard about Ram’s elevation to the prince regent status, saw this development from her own sense of insecurity and the likely loss of status for Kaikeyi and her son, prince Bharat. She informed Kaikeyi and influenced her to demand exile for Ram, and a throne for Bharat. Manthara might not qualify as an appointed khabri, but this episode comes very close to how the khabri system works.
Khabri— an informant
The quintessential Khabri is a trusted informant who passes information on activities and people to the promoters or top bosses. We observe that the promoters’ ability to have a network of such informants across their organisation— the length and breadth of their business empire— is astounding. Being a Khabri is not easy. It involves the ability to identify information that may be of interest to the promoters and retain it, and to pass it on without arousing suspicion among the other stakeholders. Khabries, regardless of their actual work performance in their assigned roles are often retained, encouraged, and rewarded— even outside the formal system— by the promoters.
Khata— MIS system
The Khata is a homegrown MIS practiced by certain business communities in India. It captures daily business KPIs often covering accounting and, or finance, and sometimes operational numbers. Some business communities have their own accounting norms, which in their own way, is the thumb rule for the health of the business— be it trading, manufacturing or services! Some businesses need to see their own simple Khata statement every night, despite the business scale and scope— even global. The Khata information is available to select individuals usually only from within the promoter group, and a few select trusted lieutenants, if any.
*Kaash— what if I had not
Back to Kaikeyi from the epic Ramayana. Manthara’s influence led Kaikeyi to lose her husband—Dashrath – who passed away, the loss of respect from everyone including her own son, Bharat, and ultimately the loss of respect in her own eyes. She could only wish that she had not done what she had.
The ever present “if” in a family business is a double edged knife. It works positively with the ability of the promoters to always question “what if” and prepare for those scenarios. The other side of such a behavior is the doubting-Thomas syndrome, who constantly badger their teams about “if” something does not happen.
*The other side
There is a flip side to the Khabri’ syndrome—a leader’s reliance on an informal, and almost deeply personally entrenched network of those who pass on news, views, comments, and in many cases with their own twists and turns, sometimes on purpose, sometimes subconsciously or even ignorantly.
There seem to be several issues. What information gets captured and how it is conveyed, is bound by the Khabries’ cognition even when a Khabri did not have any self-interest in it. It cannot escape the Chinese whisper phenomenon, and even the most alert promoters may be vulnerable to undue influences at a subconscious level. Khabries over time often begin to exploit the insecurities and vulnerabilities of leaders to further their own self-interest. Worst, having Khabries often undermines the development of a robust formal information system. Underinvestment, lack of faith, disrespect, and confusion with respect to formal information systems ensue. Khabries often ignore their formal work without any visible consequences, or even get rewarded by top bosses, and they show off their power. All of this destroys the trust in a fair culture.
Khata has its flip side too. It (and perhaps, the khabri system) served well in the pre-digitalised world, with less complex and relatively smaller size business operations, smaller scope, slower pace, and above all, centralised command and control. The organisations in the VUCA world with their complexity, scope, and pace of change, require agility and demand decentralisation. In such a world, Khata-led simplification of complexity could be costly. Bigger organisations today prefer formalised systems such as balance scorecards. The culture of withholding information that goes with the Khata would have its own cost, among others, on agility and the kind of talent one can attract and retain.
*Beyond Khabri, Khata and Kaash
Used to Khabries and Khatas, and oblivious to its power, it is not surprising that traditional businesses and leaders fear the T word—Transparency.
The old-school family businesses with their command and control style, age-led hierarchy, equated loyalty to leaders to competency, preferred informal opaque information systems for both internal and external stakeholders.
Conventionally, the concerns of minority shareholders, systemic fragility and the cascading impact on the economy that the opacity of firms create make a strong case for firms to be transparent. Business families are growing— in business complexity, business scale, scope, and family size. At least a few members of the enlarging clan are simply not interested in continuing in the executive roles in the family business, would eventually have asymmetric holdings, or some who want executive roles are simply not fit to run a business to protect the family wealth, let alone grow it. As an enlarging clan begins to mimic a mini-institution, the benefits of transparency become apparent. Additionally, the emerging VUCA world is making it obvious that formal transparent information flows and systems help build effective and efficient coordination, facilitate control, create fair culture, and attract, nurture and retain better talent— all that leads to superior performance.
Fortunately, a shift is taking place. One hears a cautious reference to the T word as families that aspire to build lasting enterprises are realising the challenges and the need for transparency, professionalising, and opting for best practices in governance. Any attempt to build a robust transparent information system needs to start with intent and resolve at the very top. Carefully mapping information, its flows, templates, reporting frequency, and the system needed to support and capture workflows and formats would help. It requires a shift from a culture where the privilege of information is used to wield power, to a culture where information is used to facilitate, empower and enable candid and informed conservations and fair systems.
Despite such merits and obvious shortcomings and flaws khabri and khata systems are not going anywhere. It boils down to promoters’ and similar styled (professional) leaders’ personal insecurities, desire to hold control, and confusing these preferences and interests of theirs’ with the organisation’s well-being. The khabri and khata school of thought need disruption of mindset, else it is just a matter of time— businesses would simply not survive this or another generation. But who will tell the Boss?
(The views expressed by the authors are personal, and do not reflect those of organisations they are associated with)
Dr. Srinath Sridharan, Corporate Advisor, Leadership Coach & Author
Twitter : @ssmumbai
Dr. Nilesh Khare, Executive Coach | Board/CxO Advisor | Startup Mentor
