Who Is The Spoilt Brat?

Everyone has been crying and complaining about the so called Ratantrum. They are going deaf complaining about it but who is the one actually making all the noise? Is it really a case of only one man's ego? Mr Tata, a man who has earned his respect over the last 50 years is basically being made out to be a senile old man who is trying to shadow run the company and Cyrus as the poor little piglet who has borne the brunt of it. If anything, the steady stream of outbursts from the Mistry camp only corroborate what the Tata group has been saying all along - his behaviour is not in line with the values and philosophy of the Tata Group!

Ratan Tata joined the group in 1961, he started on the shop floor at Tata Steel shovelling limestone and handling the blast furnace. During the 21 years he led the Tata Group, revenues grew over 40 times, and profit, over 50 times. He made bold decisions, he hired young talent, he rewarded innovation. Yes things took a turn for the worse along with the commodity cycle but if only everyone had the benefit of hindsight, including Cyrus. If I remember correctly the Corus acquisition for instance, was hailed at the time for catapulting Tata Steel from 56th to 5th largest steel producer in the world and while the price was debated, it was seen in sync with consolidation in the global steel industry. Ratan Tata is an entrepreneur first and his priority has always been to grow the brand. An entrepreneur's trademark is that he is willing to take risks to achieve growth, not run scared. That means sticking it out through the troughs as well as enjoying the high points.

Cyrus has had it easy. He took over a $100 billion conglomerate, fully aware of the challenges ahead, and he has not been able to overcome them. Its not the first time we have seen a board room battle of this kind. Remember O'Neill's strategic ousting of Vikram Pandit from Citi without cause saying, 'the board has lost confidence in you'. Pandit chose to step down immediately after. Sometimes a partnership goes wrong and you got to know when to call it. Its nowhere near the end of the road for the Tata group, the behemoth will find a way to come out of this. Too big to fail as they say. But it may well be an end to Mistry's career. If anyone has handled things badly it is him.

The truth is no one is going to care about your brand like you do. And if you see someone making the wrong calls it hurts. Its not about doing things a different way. Its about finding a way thats even better than your predecessor. And those were big shoes that the Tatas was expecting him to fill. The question is who will the next CEO and will he be able to take on the challenge?