Many organisations face the dilemma that Rollsum India Board did — whether to promote an internal candidate who has demonstrated certain capabilities and delivered results, or hire an external candidate who has a proven track record in a lower role and is a ready fit. The success of a candidate like Chaitanya Suri in a new role depends on his ability to transition effectively to the next level of leadership — we call it "leadership crossroad transition". Although much literature is available on the topic of creating a leadership pipeline or CEO succession, even established organisations find the task challenging. Mostly, clarity is absent for leadership roles. While most companies do a good job of defining financial and operational requirements, they often do a poor job of defining leadership requirements and differentiating them by levels.Marshall Goldsmith, a great CEO coach and the author of best-selling book What Got You Here Will Not Get You There, has noted how previous success often prevents us from achieving more. He also discusses the key beliefs of successful leaders and behaviours that hold them back. Chaitanya is looking at a map of his life and career, and focusing on the now. But he is resisting the truth that he has to move forward. It won't take much to get him oriented and back on the right path. There are simple behavioural tics — bad habits that we repeat often in the workplace — that can be cured by (a) pointing them out; (b) showing the havoc they cause among the people surrounding them; and (c) demonstrating that with a slight behavioural tweak, we can achieve a more appealing effect. A good executive coach can play this role.Rollsum is a place where Chaitanya can be successful despite some gaps in his leadership behaviour or personal makeup. Here he can be an effective CEO, a great leader impacting business and taking the company to the next level. But he needs to understand that what got him here, won't get him there. Chaitanya's belief that nothing has changed in the way the organisation does business, in the way competition is behaving or in the environment, and his strong desire to remain status quo for 8-10 months can be very dangerous. All of us in the workplace delude ourselves about our achievements, status, contributions, relationships, image, etc. This instills confidence in us and erases doubt, but blinds us to the risks and challenges in our work. Our delusions become a serious liability when we need to change and when someone tries to make us change our ways. Chaitanya's statement is quite evident: "Why do you need a CEO when you didn't have one until now? And this is a bad time to put this halo around me. All these people I work with, they will feel distanced..." One of the greatest mistakes of successful people is the assumption, ‘I am successful. I behave this way. Therefore, I must be successful because I behave this way!' The challenge is to make them see that sometimes they are successful in spite of this behaviour. Cognitive dissonance refers to the disconnect between what we believe in our minds and what we experience or see in reality. Yet, it works in favour of successful people when they apply it to themselves. It is the reason successful people do not buckle when times get tough. Their commitment to their goals and beliefs allows them to view reality through rose-tinted glasses. Of course, this same steadfastness can work against them, too, when they should change course. Management expert Peter Drucker said, "We spend a lot of time teaching leaders what to do. We don't spend enough time teaching leaders what to stop." The funny thing about stopping a behaviour is it gets no attention, but it can be as crucial as everything we do combined.Self-directed career development is a new corporate reality. Taking responsibility for one's own career provides options and opportunities that probably would not have been available before. Most people find it easy to understand this. Somewhat less clear is the process by which you move from one stage to another. Such transitions are by no means automatic and require a new approach — in effect re-negotiating one's role in the organisation. This requires a change in relationships, tasks, perspective, beliefs, knowledge, skills and abilities. The Four Stage Career Model developed by Gene Dalton and Paul Thompson calls this transition process ‘Novation'. It has to be driven by the employee. The organisation can promote, demote, hire, fire, transfer, reassign, or outsource. But it cannot ‘novate' an employee.Like Chaitanya, most leaders make little or no short-term adjustments in their operating style, even if a job is new. It may seem as though there has been a shift in beliefs and values. But a transformation in behaviour will happen only when a shift takes place on a sustained basis. Otherwise, stakeholders do not take leadership change seriously.Sreekanth K. Arimanithaya is vice-president and chief of HR for Britannia Industries. He was earlier with Computer Associates, GE and Toyota(This story was published in Businessworld Issue Dated 10-10-2011)
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Chaitanya Suri sat on the edge of the kitchen platform on one leg watching his mother restlessly fidget with this and that. She was muttering one moment, and the next she was wiping her hands down her sides on her sari. Chaitanya recognised these movements. "Ma, what's worrying you?" he asked her gently. He had told her last night that he had been made the CEO of his company Rollsum India, manufacturers of packaged food.But the news did not seem to bring Ma joy. And now she was whispering uncertainly, "He should have been here to enjoy all this... why do I need all this? He wanted you to become a big man..." She was remonstrating with her Guru on the altar, a small shelf in her kitchen corner."Okay Ma. By your own teachings, bapu is there with me in spirit, correct? So then, tell me how do you feel being the mother of a CEO?" he said half teasing, half engaging her while helping himself to food from the cooking pot with his bare hands, deliberately to distract her. Sure enough she whacked his arm and said, "This is wrong, Tannu! Unhygienic! How did they make you CEO? You don't know anything even now!""How do you think we make our food products, Ma? I have to taste our products, like this, see, I will show you..." and he dipped his hand into the kofta curry and fished out a kofta as she stood there shaking her head and stroking his back in an unusually happy manner. Unhygienic or not, he was a good son, she thought. The story of Chaitanya becoming CEO was as unusual as he was a candidate. An engineer, he was essentially a doer, an accomplisher. Very simple in every way, every boss he had worked with until now, held him in high regard as someone dependable. Working with Chaitanya was such that only after a few months one stopped and realised what a blessing it was having him watch over everything. He had that manner of doing without lights and sound. Chaitanya had joined Rollsum on the rebound after hurriedly quitting Kavant Pharma, which, he accidentally discovered one day, was mired in extremely illegal stuff. Frightened out of his wits, he took the first job that came up, and that happened to be from Rollsum. When the company started crumbling after two years of his being there, Chaitanya fought the fires daily like a soldier, albeit in his region. But he was in the biggest and largest region: the West.On the rebound, Rollsum made some hasty strategic decisions, all of which bombed, leading to huge attrition at the top. By 2008, the management had come to depend exclusively on Chaitanya, whose perceived role had by then gone beyond the western region. Aiding this was a key fact: the chairman, Abhay Acharya, had his office in the same building where Chaitanya and his western region worked. So Chaitanya had come to be his local voice of wisdom, and this reputation naturally travelled to Rollsum's head office in Delhi.When the head of plant operations quit in 2009, Acharya instructed that Chaitanya should take care of the plant operations until they found a replacement. This was easy because the plants were all located in Gujarat. Soon after this, Chaitanya was called upon to bail out the management during a particularly tricky curve it was negotiating with some messy worker retrenchment at the factories it was selling. He had managed the situation admirably, refusing to break law or ethics, yet keen to extricate from the situation with victory for all.Chaitanya had all that it took to keep the company running: strong management skills, people skills, and patience. He had a steady manner of dealing with crisis and chaos. He mostly remained unfazed and had a stunning focus on the task at hand, whatever it was. The board had begun to notice this.When attrition shot up in 2009-10, Chaitanya had asked the board to protect the workers and the sales teams. "The factory workers are key for our continuity; they are good, know the processes and are high up on the learning curve. Retraining will put a strain on quality, which we cannot afford now. And the sales team? We need them, for sales is what is going to keep the company afloat." break-page-breakOver the next two years, some level of trust was restored in the operations and even the promoters, who had earlier resisted Chaitanya for his ethical stance, now felt his commitment was a blessing. Ethics was not a strong point with the top management, the shareholders and the promoters — they were reputed to have done all kinds of things in their periphery, so that finding people for Rollsum was not easy, as its reputation had come under a cloud. So when a CEO had to be appointed, Acharya told the board, "I like this fellow, Chaitanya. His initiatives have worked out well for us. Importantly, the trust that he enjoys with the stakeholders — external customers, internal employees, vendors, agencies, etc., is indicative of the their bonding with him and their confidence in his leadership. These are pluses in his favour..."Yet some felt a regional guy could not be given corporate responsibility. Acharya said, "But de facto, he has been doing a corporate job! He is here in Delhi three days a week to fight our fires. So what regional handicap do you see?"Another felt he was just an IIT, and would lack the finesse of a school-groomed manager. Still someone else felt that he was a hands-on chap, dealt with the nitty gritty, and did not seem to have the presence of a business leader. When he heard about the decision, Chaitanya was taken aback. He called Acharya and said, "Why do you need a CEO when you didn't have one until now? And this is a bad time to put this halo around me. All these people I work with, they will feel distanced....""Don't worry," said Acharya."We need the company to have a face and that has to be you." But Sujeet Mathur, a board member had told him artlessly, "Arre baba, if we want to sell the company tomorrow, it must look well-appointed with CEO-she-e-o and all, no!"Chaitanya called Acharya again, "I don't know what is going on in Delhi, so I don't feel comfortable with this designation. When I promised to turnaround the company, it was with perpetuity in mind, not a ‘fattening before sacrifice' exercise. How do you expect me to feel committed to an artificial role?"But Acharya waved away Mathur's prophecy. "One of the first steps of being a CEO is selective hearing and collective ignoring. You keep your nose to the ground and keep going." Reassured, Chaitanya called his wife, Bhavani. "Listen," he said to her on the phone, "Don't laugh, but I have become the CEO." But Bhavani laughed. "That is so funny, I can't even imagine what you will look like!" But presently, she expressed discomfort, "You have to be careful with these guys..." she said. "You know, being a star manager who fulfils all demands is one thing. But now you have been given a designation that ties you down! "These are all strange people, Chaitanya — prone to fits of anger, internecine jealousies, undesirable legal shenanigans, with bankers... How will you deal with them? Will life change? We are not those kind of people. I am happy that we will have more money and we can do more with it, but won't your life get constricted and restricted and all that? At least make sure you don't fall into the trap of over-work. I don't want the peace and calm we have, the time and space for just sitting and smiling, to change."Monday morning, just as he was taking a call from Delhi, Dara, Karna and Dileep entered the room. They were his senior sales managers. Waving to them as he usually did, Chaitanya went back to his call. Soon he sensed something was amiss. Usually they were noisy and he had to often shush them...why did I not get a response from these guys?... and he looked up. They were standing at the door with a bouquet. "Eh?" he said. They laughed and congratulated him, and said, "We heard the news, you have become the big boss!"That is when it actually hit him. Big Boss... Is this going to affect my relationship with these people? That they called him "big boss", rankled. These were his people, with whom he shared such a rapport — they worked together, shouted at each other, forced work out of each other. All these guys had the ability to fight me back. Now with this big boss position on me, will they fight me back or will they quietly succumb to the pressure I will bring upon them as the CEO? Chaitanya looked at them with his characteristic grin, and said, "Bas kiya...! CEO is what, hanh? You know, just a label!" Some silent pondering later, he said, "What irony hanh... you guys do all the hard work. But look, I get the reward!" And in a second with that dancing look he told them, "Chalo aaj beer ho jaaye and this time also you will pay!" They laughed, but Chaitanya was anxious. They did not call me ‘Chatni' as they always do!Then, he said to them in all friendliness, "Guys, listen. Who else will understand this better than you: ‘New Improved' ka matlab kya hai? Only name change; content remains the same. So, nothing has changed, please. We have a goal to get to, and we will stay with that, okay? Two, the market must not get disturbed. Underplay the label — if not the distributor will view the same selling as pressure. This festival season, we are going to seize the market and pitch our flags. We have eight new launches, bahut kuch ho raha hai. All this CEO etc. is theory; practice will be, ‘business as usual' please..."These were his solid team, his movers and shakers. The bonhomie among them was what contributed great dynamism to their flow. Now they had begun to ‘revere' him. In the process, I will get more distanced from them. Or they from me... Oh, why have they put a label on me? Chaitanya realised that their lives were now changing.Things had already begun to change. People were knocking on his door before they entered, Shaila, the secretary, now barred easy access... . And if he called anyone directly, they were very restless talking to him. So there is process now, heck! Earlier, I would go to the lowest level and get my work done. Now, it seems I must keep some distance and give space to people to operate. Why do people keep a distance from a CEO? To Bhavani, he said, "It's strange no, two people being the same, if you change their designations, the relationship between them is altered!"Chaitanya's key anxiety was the speed at which they were working the markets towards a turnaround. So, he was working with the finance and marketing chaps too. Earlier, nobody even remembered he was GM. The bonhomie was such. Now the CEO collar clanked like a cowbell. Chaitanya did not want anything to change. Later, he said to his wife: "I am uncomfortable, Bhavani... I am a different creature now. I don't think I even count for a human! If I want to go to Manikanda in IT, do you think he will continue to tell me, like he used to, ‘Go away, po-da! I have a life to live, I will give it to you after a week. This week is for IPL...'!"To Acharya he confessed, "We had that back-slapping engaging style where we flowed together and yet delivered. Now I wonder: can a CEO be the enabler? All was going well, why did we feel the need for a CEO? How do I make sure that I don't lose the bridge with them?" To Cyrus, an old school friend and marketing head of Damex Fuller, he said, "The company has a huge bank loan to repay by next December. I need to run with the sales fellows non-stop... now will they share the bad news? You know when I was in sales, I too did not reveal the real picture to top management. So why should these chaps? They will paint hunky-dory pictures! How is one to know what is the truth?"Cyrus: Nothing like that. After a few days, it will be back to normal. But there is a need to build a distance. I don't think it can be avoided. You cannot seek to have a bridge to everyone, because then you will be under pressure always. There will be times when you will need that gap.And then Mathur from the head office called and said, "Chaitanya, tum Dilli shift ho jao!" Chaitanya got thinking. His children were very well settled in their school; they would take poorly to change. His daughter especially, who was head girl and whatnot, would yell the loudest. No, he did not want an unstable home life now. "Please, may we put this on hold?" he asked HR. "I'd rather deal with one change at a time, the turnaround will be the first. Let us hang on for 18 months, allow me to accomplish all this." break-page-breakThen HR emailed him and said, "In that case, you must at least have a different office. Admin will be in touch with you, the 11th floor office will be redone..." Chaitanya called Kunal Swami in HR. "Kunal, let us slow down please. No change till we clock profits. People know we are on a drip. Being CEO does not mean being swathed in opulence. There is an overdraft strangulating us... We have been bleeding for six years. We are just beginning to turn the corner. This year's appraisals were force rated because we had no money. You take away their increments and give me a carpet? The CEO-ship is just a convenience measure. There is no need to make a drama, please! My third floor room is decent. It has been a good room for me; I don't want any expression of change... This will just put more distance between me and the people, and there will then be more punctuations like the secretary, one ante room, one personal pantry... Kunal: Just go and see the room, boss. It has been designed for quiet; working away from the clutter of office madness. Chaitanya: And that is exactly what I cannot afford now. Kunal, I need every resource easily accessible and without any walls. Last 18 months, we have worked together as one. We applied designations only when the skill and responsibility was required. Now you put me in a fortress and have a snarling tiger at the door, and all work will fizzle out. "Then again, we have had so many austerity measures for the staff. In fact, the senior management must adopt austerity above everyone else! Even when it came to promotions, who all got ‘Outstanding'? Who got promotions? Senior management. But wasn't it a far greater number of junior staff whose increments were cut because they were force rated? Let this change not be visible. It is embarrassing."Chaitanya's application to the turnaround was almost manic. But only the staff and managers saw him at work. Top management was in Delhi and had no idea how he dealt with the market, with distributors, etc. To be distanced from his sales and marketing teams was, for Chaitanya, loss of ‘market affinity'. Daily, so much happens! These men are the carriers of essential intelligence. For example, will Dasan knock on my door to tell me that Kutappan from Pirovom is toying with the idea of taking up distributorship for Teffer? Will Samar slide past my table as he always annoyingly does, grabbing my neck for support as I curse him, and tell me, "Killer, Parel-Lalbagh-Byculla completely consumed by Inji, (the ginger paste). We are rocking boss!" Does that add value to my knowledge of Inji? Of the markets? No! But it is telling me we are right about Inji. That same subtle intelligence will now come to me in stupid acetate sheet, wrapped in sophisticated (useless) language like: ‘Inji is visbile'. Inji had better be visible. It jolly well be after spending Rs 14 lakh on its first day blitz. But it is health and reality that comes from Samar's slide, grab and slap.When Tanisha, Raja, Bulldog and Nirma-King fight and scream over the presentation in the conference room, I see health. Will my clinical 11th floor cage do that?But Mathur said, "Young man, you will get used to it. Good people like you have to go there one day. The first few days are not easy, but thereafter it is heady, trust me."When Acharya called him from London, Chaitanya did his best to explain, "If you trust me to run your business, how come it is difficult to trust the very first move I make as CEO? If you had not put that collar round my neck, I would still be in Mumbai, still in my small cabin, and all would have been well. What breathtaking change are you now expecting with all this?"Nothing has changed in the way the organisation does business, in the way competition is behaving or anything in the environment. It's time now to keep a steady eye on the tricky variables. But now I do not want distraction, not for a second. Look, all I am saying is keep status quo for 8-10 months. Let us achieve a few milestones that I need for the survival of the business, and then we can make whatever cosmetic changes that you want." His biggest concern was not allowing anxiety among the staff who he had kept from accepting other offers. Many had trusted his faith in the turnaround and stayed back. When Kunal flew to Mumbai with the keys to Acharya's room, Chaitanya took them gracefully and thanked him. Then he said, "No hurry, Kunal. I will move once I decide to move. It will happen in fullness of time!"Classroom DiscussionCan a CEO really enable without running with the pack and being one with them?casestudymeera (at)gmail (dot)com(This story was published in Businessworld Issue Dated 10-10-2011)
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Many of us feel trapped in the roles assigned to us in our work spheres. This feeling grows gradually. In fact, most of us are like frogs in a well when we are in junior positions. At those levels, our field of view is limited, busy as we are in our attempts to overachieve, driven mostly by adrenaline. Later, as we rise in the hierarchy, we get to see from up close the ‘truth' or the actual DNA of the organisation. By then, one is seen as an ‘establishment' person who has come up from the ranks and one who fully subscribes to and empathises with the company's vision. Such a situation is very stressful and needs to be addressed urgently and with clarity. Otherwise, the conflict tends to reduce efficiency levels, lowers morale and, ultimately, demotivates the individual.So, what are the choices available to a person who finds himself in this position?Quite simply, not many. Either he conforms to the reality or he opts out. There is a third option and sadly, many remain in this ‘twilight zone'. These people begin to live a lie. They are unhappy and feel helpless as they are unable to change the status quo and worse, unable to move out of their comfort zones mostly because of the financial security the job provides. In time, the conflict starts gnawing at their innards and a downward efficiency spiral sets in.Kapil Shankar, quite clearly does not belong in this ‘twilight zone'. He joined the company enthused by the vision that Aniljeet Daman articulated because it matched well with his core beliefs. As time went on, he started noticing Taffet Group employing questionable means to achieve corporate ends. This was in conflict with the stated aim of bringing an advanced generation product for the common man. While Aniljeet may have been well-meaning and committed to the end, the ethical shift in the company begged the question: does a laudable end justify the questionable means deployed to achieve it? As the head of HR, it was Kapil's responsibility to nurture a human resource base that is aligned to and capable of delivering Aniljeet's vision. Kapil got immersed in his task but soon saw disturbing trends, which had the potential to alter the trajectory of a company that was ramping up to achieve its owners' vision. Strangely, the owner himself appears to be oblivious to this development. Kapil had Aniljeet's ear and like a responsible senior management member, he boldly brought his concerns to the table, only to be brushed aside by Anil's disparaging comment that Kapil was not adventurous enough. The writing on the wall was clear. Aniljeet was a man in a hurry, not likely to be slowed down by issues that would, in effect, become speed bumps on his highway to success.Is there such a thing as being too sensitive about issues that have an ethical dimension in a vibrant, innovative and successful company? Or, are business ethics bound to be a casualty in companies that need to survive in a hostile, dynamic and highly competitive market place where almost nobody plays by the rules? These are interesting moral dilemmas even if they reside in a philosophical domain. A surgeon cannot be emotional about losing his patient on the table. He needs to insulate himself from suffering long-term emotional lows if he has to remain effective and continue to help other patients. Similarly, in order to be effective and deliver as per expectation, a soldier must desist from being tentative and squeamish about taking an enemy's life when locked in combat.So, should the head of HR be concerned only with delivering what is expected of him and leave other corporate strategy issues to be decided by those whose job it is? If an individual is ethical, intelligent, observant and has the courage of his or her convictions, it becomes extremely difficult to let things ride and turn the other way while disturbing trends are visible within ones field of view. Kapil is such a man, and his decision to quit shows it.And what of vision-driven owners like Aniljeet, who choose to remain disengaged while their hatchet men go to work using questionable means? This approach is myopic and success, so achieved, will not last. As in life, so in business — if ethical conduct is missing, excellence and success will be fleeting. This is why we have two types of business entities: those that flatter to deceive and others that remain successful long after their visionary owners pass on the baton to like-minded professionals.Corporates must foster a culture that encourages employees to adopt the ‘straight and narrow'. But before it does that, it needs to believe that if a business remains ethical irrespective of the market environment around it, success is assured, even if it is slightly long in coming. There are enough examples of companies that have remained successful through the highs and lows that are part and parcel of the business landscape, worldwide. Rakesh Sharma (India's first man in space) has retired from active test flying and is now chairman of Automated Workflow Group(This story was published in Businessworld Issue Dated 29-08-2011)
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Samar Das slid the folded newspaper across the table towards the MD, Naren Kant. Samar had circled an item about a chief minister titled, "What did I do that my predecessors did not?"Kant said stiffly, "This is old hat. What has this to do with anything?" Samar: That is my question too — what unusual act have I done for you to impale me? Kant: Come to the point, Samar. Your actions leave no scope for humour. Samar: No humour this, Naren. I mean what I ask — what have I done? Cut to what Samar Das had done. In the tax audit, the auditors Bright & Thakur had slammed Delana India with the allegation of defrauding the government, allowing the use of SEZ (special economic zone) status (accorded to its subsidiary Newtree) by another with an intent to gain illegitimate advantage.... Samar the CEO of Newtree, had abused the benevolence of the government, said Bright & Thakur, who had qualified the accounts of Delana India, saying: "We view these acts as gross misdemeanours... The qualification in the Audit Report is not negotiable as Mr Das has sought to enable." And in a telephonic chat with Kant, Cyrus Daftary, the senior partner had said, "Naren, appalling, I say! And please don't ask me to tone it down!"A distraught Kant had summoned Samar, one of the stars at Delana who was slated for active growth . Naturally, Kant was stunned. Samar who had been appointed head of the Newtree business four years ago, had awarded the construction of the eight-storey office to Lathika Construction Company as a turnkey contract which included the setting up of mini plants and installing various equipment.. On cross verification, it was found that the purchase of steel, cement, etc., by Lathika was routed through Newtree's books as if a direct purchase by Newtree, so that Lathika illegally derived the SEZ benefits. Kant's ears burned with shame when he heard Daftary tell him all this. "Do you realise how many careers, images, names, equities are at stake? You are no trainee, Samar! And now you have the gall to sit there and say this to me?" Samar: Naren, it is easy to agonise, wrapping yourself in a blanket of sorrow. Dammit, all along each of you have made me do this!Kant: I don't believe this! I have a raving lunatic before me... Good Lord! This is what had happened. When Samar handed over the contract to Lathika, the chief at Lathika said, why don't you let me order the material using your name as if you are buying it directly? Samar agreed, negotiated with vendors of carpets, granite and glass, furniture and equipment — directly, and reaped all the indirect tax benefits that the law gave generously as exemptions for being in an SEZ. In effect, the purchases had been made by Lathika but using Newtree's letterheads. The only problem here was Samar had no business to straddle two stools, said Daftary. If he had a turnkey contractor, then it was for the contractor to buy the material. But now, as Daftary told him, neither Newtree nor Lathika had paid the taxes on material, so that the government had unfairly lost money. The flip side of this was that when the contract was analysed and capitalised as assets in Newtree's books as furniture and fixtures, office equipment, carpets, light fittings, etc., they had as a consequence of all above acts, been undercapitalised. Kant: Do you realise that you have cast a huge slur on your integrity as a result of all this? Samar: How does integrity suddenly enter? Kant winced; this was exactly what he had asked Daftary when he had questioned his integrity. And Daftary had said, "I will tell you where integrity comes in. There are two parties entering a transaction together. One is a very reputed MNC, large company, highly respected, trusted by the government, always presented as an organisation with good people, good employers, therefore ‘we also employ good people'. Delana is also considered a respectable unit of society, especially since your tag line reads, ‘We do business in an ethical manner''." Kant to Daftary: That agreement to tweak the billing happened in the individual capacity of Samar Das! That fellow did not call me and ask, ‘I am going to do this, is this okay with you?' Daftary: Either you are naive or I am a monkey's uncle, Naren. When Samar Das as a senior manager acts on behalf of his business, that act is an act Delana has done. What is in it for Samar when he agrees to this with Lathika, yes? Every manager has a responsibility to get his job done at a lower cost. So he gets his brownies if he negotiates to save costs. He is then an example for others — "Dekho, what a good boy hai! "The corporate world is keenly aware that tax is present at all stages in every transaction that entails creation of product or service, yet most companies and individuals consider it a wasteful spend. The corollary then is, a good manager is one who cuts taxes. Don't protest, Naren. All my clients hire me for exactly this reason. There are n number of discussions on what can we do to change the incidence of tax, and many of these discussions border on the unethical or use interpretational ploys to save taxes.break-page-break Companies take pride in reporting their effective tax rates (ETR): "From a high of 23 per cent taxes, we have managed to bring our ETR to 15-16 per cent thanks to aggressive tax planning measures...". Back to Kant and SamarKant: This is definitely not what we expect reasonably intelligent business graduates to understand of ethical behaviour. I have to rethink a lot of how I staff my organisation!Samar: I am surprised you should paint me with horns and fangs. Why don't I tell you how it all began, so that you can see how it begins?Kant was appalled by the nonchalance as Samar, adjusting his sitting posture , began..."Nine years ago, when I was an accountant for Milk, Foods & Health business, Anant Inamdar was heading it. On 31 December one year, the sales team raised invoices well after 5.30 pm which was our audit cut off. It was 7.30 pm and they had just convinced a huge wholesaler to accept goods. The value of the invoice was, if I remember right..."Kant: Cut out the details please! Samar: Very well. So I had signed off the sales ledger, the last Goods Outward Note (GON) had been double struck and signed by the factory accountant and the last number had been fed into the system. Anant said to me "Samar, ask your boy to scratch off that GON and make a new one. More sales have been ‘made' and we need to ‘back time' them." I told him that 5.30 is 5.30 and I was not comfortable asking junior staff to do hanky-panky stuff. (Kant shuddered at this point)He looked at me for a long time then shutting my room door he said, "In your last appraisal you said you wanted profit center head responsibility. My dear friend, responsibility is meeting top line, meeting bottom line, meeting targets and that includes all this..., hmm? Where do you think your 12 per cent increment is going to come from? If this is ‘difficult' my dear chap, fat chance you stand of qualifying for the Newtree vacancy!"That was how when the Business Head position for Newtree fell vacant, Anant pushed my name for it because the whole setting up, negotiating, etc. needed a huge commerce sense. Kant: What's your point, Samar? That Anant is corrupt? That he put you up for corrupt practices? That you were pure as driven snow and were forced at gun point? Samar: Oh! Why do I sense you are angry? Kant: Yes, I am angry. Yes, yes, yes! You work 17 years in this organisation, partake of all the largesse, the teaching and the learning and blame your integrity on Anant? You have done a lowly act Samar, be a man and accept that first! Samar: Hmm. Let me see... what was it that I was replying to? You have chosen to replace the original question with your anxiety. Ah yes, this is what you had said Naren, something like "this is not what we expect reasonably intelligent business graduates to understand of ethical behaviour". I was replying to that, Naren! Maybe you want to examine what was ethical about Anant's ploys? Kant: You say ‘ploy'?! Samar: I say ‘ploy'! Yes I do! He was holding out a veiled threat to me or say, carrot to me to toe the line if I wanted to move up the ladder. And today when I do the same on a larger scale, you call me "a slur on integrity"! Kant: Samar, can we cut out the theatrics, please? I am here to take away an understanding of where you went wrong! This is a company very high on ethics and integrity, Samar, and it pains me to see you make a meal of your career! Samar: You clearly harbour some illusions about business graduates and senior managers. Let me take you back in time.In 1993, I joined Delana India as an industrial trainee. My father worked with the electricity board as a petty engineer doing thankless jobs and it was his desire to make a great man out of me. Yes, I belong to that transiting India where fathers did boring government jobs and mothers coughed over the cooking pot. So I did my cost accountancy and then a second tier MBA. At 24, I still held the values of my parents very close to my heart.When I joined Delana, everyone told me what a wonderful company this is… great people, law abiding, no one takes or pays bribes, honest…. At the orientation, nine different senior managers addressed us 25 trainees with stories of great men and great stories of small men. Then I was posted in the Kopla factory. It was a very distressed area given to a lot of Naxal activity, and I wondered why we even had a factory there. They told me that the government of India was incentivising development of backward areas, and Delana offered to set up a factory there in Kopla. In return, Delana got a seven- year tax holiday (TH).When I was sent there, the TH was over. Activity was low, the overall mood was bleak, workers were argumentative, the factory head was irritable because he was losing money... After seven years, we were having to pay excise and everyone's mood was spoilt.Seeing the factory working at 60 per cent, I asked the factory manager, how come...? He said the freight cost from Kopla to the markets , was prohibitive, and we are deliberately downsizing, capacities have been shifted to other units and I ask him what is the plan, and he says we will shut it down.In the three months I was there, there were two strikes, 42 per cent of workers were paid off, one gherao... and I sit there wondering. We had been given that TH to enrich the place, to develop it, to create employment, to bring hope to a people, to incentivise which, the TH! But we took the TH, and left after seven years. Was that partnering the GOI in development? What happened to the hope of the people?We knew that the delivery to those areas was going to be expensive anyway, then why did we accept the GOI offer? Kopla was a pretence!So where is Delana that was touted as ‘does the right things'? At the age of 24-25, I was watching Delana bend the rules and reshape it to adhere to their definitions. Could it be that they misunderstood the spirit of the tax holiday? Could it be that they think they were expected to be here for seven years only? Can the GOI be stupid? Is that the right thing? Or am I stupid? And thus my mind raged and raged...Kant: Cut out the verbal blogging, Samar, and get to the point!Samar: We are at the point, that's how funny it is! What other point can one get to from here?My ‘cutting the milk tooth' moment happened under the tutelage of Bharat Maini, who was then the head of Commercial when I was posted in Accounts department.break-page-break Our rent costs were going up every month as we were hiring more managers. Now there is a service tax paid on rentals. Every commercial contract has a rent element and a maintenance element. So a lot of effort went into converting rentals into maintenance to ‘save' 10 per cent tax. And that was my job too. Maini had a boss who took him out for a beer if he ‘saved' the 12 per cent tax on a new rent contract! I didn't know all this. I would go to Maini and say "Sir, if there is so much maintenance we are paying, surely this property is not worth renting!" and he would shoo me away saying, go do your work! But I worried about how much was being spent on maintaining rented property.So I made a spreadsheet and showed him how the maintenance was stupidly high. That was when he did this calculation and showed me how much we saved as taxes! My jaw dropped, but Maini said, "If you want to be a dull munshi, you won't go far in this organisation. Do some creative accounting, the sky is the limit!" My great moment came when I geared some rentals for Maini. One of the penthouses we rented at Ha-Ha Home was offered at Rs 50,000 per month and belonged to one Mr X. I said to him naively, "Let us account for this creatively, please?" He was very pleased… and like a true mafia trainee, I committed my first felony. The law said if the annual rental value (ARV) paid is in excess of Rs 1.2 lakh, you have to deduct tax at source, called TDS, and deposit with GOI. So under guidance from X, I broke the rentals into five parts, X would show there were five co-owners, and Delana had to give him five different cheques in different names. In return, he reduced the rent from Rs 55,000 by Rs 7,000 — Delana was going to save a lot as rental costs. Kant: I don't believe this... dammit you are lying. Any idiot will ask to see the sale deed before renting the property! Then you will know there are no five co-owners. Samar: That's the beauty. And incidentally, this was how Maini too objected! It was simple. X had to just declare that the property is owned by five different people.From simmering vein-busting anger, Kant had now grown intrigued. "Understand this, and this does not require an IIT degree. You have a fiduciary duty to ensure that the person with whom you are contracting is in fact the owner of the property. Samar: I agree. Delana has the obligation to check the sale deed but it does not do this. Can't you see, since each cheque was below Rs 10k, there was no TDS, hence X won't come under the scanner? He could bank the cheques in an undeclared account and have fun?"So if Delana is goody two shoes, and says no no I will pay one cheque only, then X will charge us Rs 55,000 and after tax paid to GOI, X will earn only Rs 40,000. Instead he showed me the way forward. He said pay me Rs 48,000, in five cheques; also 30 per cent of that I will show as maintenance, not rentals; I will save service tax (15 per cent on the maintenance portion) — I don't declare all of this as income, so my Rs 15,000 gets saved, and I will give you Rs 7,000 out of my Rs 15,000 as a saving in the rental cost, so that instead of 55 you will pay me 48." Kant's mind reeled. The calculations were fast, the intrigue too much... in a devious way he had to admit these guys were very smart, even if it was a kind of smart he did not subscribe to. Samar: Maini was delighted. We copied this on all flat rentals, divisional profits looked better. And since Delana doesn't make a TDS, there is no link to the landlord and hence X can choose to not declare the income! You understand?Was I doing this to cheat the GOI? Nope! I'm doing this to save my bottom line. If I can save Rs 7,000 in the rent line, I can spend more in the advertising line, see? That is so much more better for my top line, my visibility, my blah! Kant: Not ‘realising' is worse than thieving! I cannot buy this line of argument, sorry. It only means the strategy ideation was not all inclusive, it has been done only from your personal standpoint, to gain, to win, to look good! Considering how many hundreds of crores are lost to the GOI in taxes, can you think that we could have bought bullet proof vests for ATS Karkare?Samar: Or Raja would have several crores in Seychelles. That is another rationalisation!Kant: Karkare did not have a bullet proof vest because his department did not have the budgets, but uniquely Samar, they had a resource like Karkare to save Mumbai! Samar: It depends on who is rationalising and how. I can say other Indians are not paying taxes, so why me? Recently, I met the CFO of Kosta India. His company used pirated copies of all software, and his rationalisation was, "The original costs Rs 16,000. Who pays so much? Nobody does." This CFO also told me, "We pay our taxes." So I asked him, either you don't know that you have an obligation to pay for intellectual property, like the operating system, or you don't pay everything you owe to people! He said, "I agree. This is a concept of not guilty by association because everybody is doing it!" "Naren... you will sack me I know. But this minister (said Samar pointing to the newspaper article) did not get sacked. His argument was the same, ‘The guy before me also allotted land to his family, what wrong have I done?'" Classroom DiscussionAre acts that are legal, also ethical? Are companies preoccupied with only being on the right side of the law? casestudymeera(at)gmail(dot)com (This story was published in Businessworld Issue Dated 28-03-2011)
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This case raises ethics-related issues at the individual level, at the organisational level and at a societal level. There is no universal definition of ethics. What is ethical in one society may be immoral in another. In India, we have traditionally had a very flexible approach to ethics. Centuries ago, Manu decreed that ethics is "situational". Even in the Mahabharata, our gods sacrificed ethics for expediency. In the New York Times, a columnist recently said: "At the heart of this condition is an important Indian character — the uncompromising practicality of the individual, ... Every person... will do what is most convenient to him... All rules and systems are subordinate to the sheer force of practicality..." His thesis: this is going to be India's undoing. That may or may not be true. But what is true is that lack of probity is a national malaise. This is the milieu in which Delana India operates, and the culture of which Samar Das and Naren Kant are products. The closest that I have come to a working definition of ethics is what Sir Adrian Cadbury said (in my words): If you have done something and can stand up in a room full of people who love and admire you, and you can own up to what you have done without any sense of shame, then it is probably ethical. The Delana case throws up the following points for debate and discussion: The responsibility for setting ethical standards in an organisation is that of the leader. And it has to be done both in words and in deed. There is no doubt that Kant has failed in this. If he was unaware of the various dubious goings-on in Delana, then he is either incompetent (not likely, because he heads a successful business) or chose to turn a Nelson's eye. The responsibility for creating the jugaad culture is clearly his.For example, while the breakup between rent and maintenance charges may be a grey area, the fact that cheques were made out in favour of several people who may not have been the rightful co-owners of the properties is clearly evasion, not avoidance. And clearly a failure of due diligence, a prerequisite in an ethical organisation. Although the line dividing tax avoidance from evasion may be thin, it is usually clear. Doubtlessly, in the Lathika episode, Delana crossed it and what was done was a clear case of evasion (illegal), not avoidance. Scams are seldom one person's doing. There is usually connivance at several levels. Every organisation needs to have an alarm system which goes off when something dubious is being contemplated. In Delana, apparently, there was none and the audit qualification seems to have come as a shock to Kant. Often, people in leadership positions tend to take an ostrich-like attitude. While there is enough evidence to show that one may get away with it once or twice, when dubious practices become institutionalised they tend to catch up with the perpetrators. That is what happened in Delana. Tax avoidance is, I think, ethical. Tax evasion is not. Taking advantage of tax incentives, which are usually given to incentivise productivity and investment, is perfectly acceptable. In Delana, the implicit message seems to be that bending rules to benefit the bottom line was acceptable. Sadly, far from uncommon in India. The gulf between precept and practice is evident in how the CEO lectures Samar about "fiduciary duty" without setting an example himself. Is the decision to shut down the Kopla plant unethical? In the absence of detailed assumptions and logic underlying the investment decision (over and above the tax holiday) it is difficult to pass judgement. It is not a good idea, usually, to start a business whose viability is predicated on tax incentives. However, it is clearly the prerogative of the owners to shut down a plant if it is no longer viable, unless it was a CSR initiative. At a societal level, tax evasion tends to pinch the conscience less if the tax payers feel that the government is not delivering the services that it should from the taxes collected, or is dishonest. It is also interesting how easy it is to justify wrong actions on the basis of what the others are doing, and is often used for numbing one's own conscience. However, this impinges on philosophical and other issues which are outside the purview of the present discussion. Finally, Kant is neither the first nor is he likely to be the last CEO who, when caught, blames his subordinates and tries to brazen it out. As, Charles Francis Adams Sr. said, "Failure seems to be regarded as the one unpardonable crime, success as the all redeeming virtue, the acquisition of wealth as the single worthy aim of life. The hair-raising revelations of skulduggery and grand scale thievery merely incite others to surpass by yet bolder outrages and more corrupt combinations." Does that mean that we accept dishonesty as practical reality? No, we should strive for the ideal. We are the only species that understands the concept of pursuit of excellence. Nripjit Singh (Noni) Chawla is an independent management advisor. An alumnus of IIM Calcutta, he has worked for 20 years in ITC and was the managing director at Max India (This story was published in Businessworld Issue Dated 28-03-2011)
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Is it possible to run a viable business in India with high ethical standards? Historically we have taken pride in our skills around pure sciences and mathematics; after all we invented the zero. This talent has morphed into cunning artistry of financial engineering, including having highly paid employees who ‘structure' tax avoidance. Some of these mechanisms are legal, but in most cases tend to be unethical. But before analysing the legal versus the ethical issues around business management, let us see why this occurs in the first place. Globally, companies are being run with a cutthroat capitalistic competition. The focus on the bottom line is intense and managers with profit and loss (P&L) responsibility face constant heat to improve revenues and margins. Promotion, compensation, incentive and bonus programmes are linked to a manager's ability to meet P&L targets. This, and a lack of strong corporate governance, prompt managers such as Samar to often push the boundaries of financial innovation to speed up career progression. The letter of the law is always black and white and stated either in bold print or in fine print. But matters of ethical wrongdoing are never outlined in a book. Ethics are embedded in the social environment, personal upbringing and in the organisation's culture. Samar's upbringing and education appear to be impeccable; it is his social environment and the culture of the organisation that are questionable. The classic phrase of jugaad — used to define resourcefulness or even an innovative way to get things done — is what Samar attempts. Academics have attempted to define professional ethics as using the same benchmarks of right and wrong as one would in their personal lives. If you do not steal from your parents' cookie jar, you are not expected to steal from your company's savings fund. That seems easy! But whenever possible, a majority of us bribe our way out of a situation. That is the paradox, and here is where defining professional ethics using personal ethics as a benchmark fails. At this stage, the organisational culture should kick-in to offset for any ethical malpractice. Culture can be the strongest tool for organisational change, or for organisational decay. Delana as an organisation has failed to embody a culture that requires employees to deal with the highest ethical and moral standard. The collective failure of the organisation to safeguard against ethical misconduct is in essence a failure of their cultural philosophy. But this failure should have been countered by Samar's manager Naren, whose role in this case is striking. Through the years, Naren has evidently trusted and mentored Samar into a position of power and responsibility. His reactions as the case unravels — from disbelief to denial, to shock, to partial resignation — is palpable of what Naren perceived as a breach of trust. However, through assumed responsibility, Naren is as culpable as Samar is, if not more. Naren's management style is questionable — specifically his ability, willingness and aptitude in setting up a process and system of governance to check and mentor an employee's progress while suggesting corrective action towards potential derailment. Samar joined Dalena at an impressionable age, and his experience was limited to his academic and personal life. He attempted to extrapolate his personal moral principles to his professional life. But his managers — from Inamdar to Naren — rewarded him based on his ability to circumvent tax structures and not his ethical standards. In the world of business, where the systematic and contextual dynamics are complex, the most important question is: realistically can a business be run with the highest ethical principles without diluting the end goal of maximising shareholder value? The answer is complex but, yes, it is possible. Many organisations have to marry two contrary goals of shareholder value and employee satisfaction. Whilst, not a template for success, here are a few points that can be implemented: Define the cultural ethos, including a set of dos and donts that are non-negotiable. Build an organisational structure where every employee is empowered to make it a better place to work at. Also, clearly outline roles, responsibilities and accountability. Implement a governance, employee engagement and a compensation model that includes the collective interest of all stakeholders. Through a catalytic form of management, attempt to institutionalise a culture where multiplicity of opinion is rewarded. Much like the adage seen on the back of trucks, ask employees to ‘Horn-ok-please' — speak your mind and speak without fear. Decisions raised through this process tend to have a greater probability of being actualised by our employees. Ishan Manaktala is managing director and head of Netik Asia, an STG portfolio company. He was the global head of trading analytics at Deutsche Bank in New York. He holds a dual MBA from London Business School and Columbia Business School (This story was published in Businessworld Issue Dated 28-03-2011)
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Kapil Shankar enjoyed a sense of partnership in building the Taffet India organisation through much of the six years of his association. Lately, however, he has been ill at ease in his relationship with his chairman, Aniljeet Daman. What used to be engaging dialogues have now become fractious. And Kapil has decided to quit as the HR chief.Despite apprehensions, Kapil decided to offer feedback on how he saw Aniljeet's leadership and its impact on the organisation in the hope that it would help in course corrections.It is not surprising that Kapil found many parallels of his experiences at Taffet with recent world events — revolutions in Tunisia, Egypt, Yemen, Syria and Libya. In India, too, a mass movement had begun against the political leadership on the issue of institutional corruption. Kapil felt that he had a chance to awaken Aniljeet from his errors and create a new stimulus for a change in leadership behaviour.Kapil's apprehension about the meeting was spot on. Although the venue was neutral, the conversations were not. Aniljeet's opening statement was tinged with sarcasm and derisiveness. Kapil side-stepped the invocation and tried to steer it another way explaining that the purpose of the meeting was to build an air of solemnity to the occasion.Aniljeet, however, continued his diatribe and wondered why so much organisation time was spent on people who had decided to leave the company. His reluctance was possibly a denial to listen to some home truths. To him, the feedback was a complaint, an allegation, or worse, an insult. Clearly, Aniljeet did not see feedback as an enabler for improvement. Or for that matter the need to nurture openness as a value to nourish, grow and keep talent.Kapil had planned to speak of the unfettered wealth accumulation, the ill-effects of over-worked employees, the lip service to ethics and the rampant indulgence to dubious means. He wished to explain that these actions were creating disharmony in the organisation. Kapil wished to articulate an alternative way of conducting business, where people had an opportunity to grow their skills and personhood, business was a form of creative expression, rules were transparent, transactions were worthy of trust and merit flourished. Instead the conversation got personal and deteriorated in context and content. Kapil felt compelled to state his reasons for joining Taffet. He spoke of his professional ethos being compromised and emphasised that they no more saw eye to eye on most issues. What was left unstated was Kapil's deep hurt at not being able to engage Aniljeet any more.Aniljeet was impervious to Kapil's state of mind. Had he been sensitive and chosen to detail the contributions and value that Kapil brought to the table, the conversation could have taken a useful turn. A bully's personality is one of being self-centered; the person is so full of himself that he does not have the empathy and sensitivity for another person or view. Reflecting this phenomenon, Aniljeet responds with half-truths: "You surprise me. We have changed everything. I am very open and supportive…." And patronisingly, when he says "When business grows… sometimes there are situations… as long as my actions are… serving a larger purpose…, if I have to ask some people to go, it is because am protecting so many other jobs…."Quite naturally, the dialogue rapidly descends into a series of arguments and allegations, and then insults.Kapil does get to address the central issue of Aniljeet's leadership flaws — of taking the easy way out, of making cosmetic changes, of being surreptitious with employees when life impacting changes were to occur, and of not sticking to the spirit of laws and conventions. Aniljeet's attempt to justify his own actions may suggest that he was unwilling to concede a re-examination of the leadership role.In the end, neither Kapil nor Aniljeet gave any ground to the other. Both would have walked away with furrowed brows and wounded egos. The responsibility for enlightened leadership was lost on both. Kapil had lost the opportunity for thought leadership long before the exit interview. He made too many compromises on his conscience. Had Kapil persisted with forceful and intensive dialogue in the earlier years at Taffet, things may have been different now. In the worst case, he may have left earlier, but with less acrimony. He should have realised that institution-building was a non sequitur at Taffet.Aniljeet may yet remain a hungry businessman playing hide and seek with the law. But he has lost the opportunity to transform into an institution-builder and inspirational leader. But then again, that may never have been his aspiration, but possibly an agenda foisted by Kapil.Jeswant Nair is the global group director of human resources at the Iffco Group of Companies. He is based in the UAE(This story was published in Businessworld Issue Dated 12-09-2011)
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I have to admit upfront that I like this man Aniljeet Daman. He wears glasses that see in black and white. Now he wants to find people with similar vision to work with and build his company, Taffet India. How much more defined can one get about life, business and the company one wants to keep? But Aniljeet and Taffet India have a grave problem — not much of the known world looks at life in black and white. Aniljeet is going to lack agreeable company. On a visit to Israel to set up a partnership with a technology company, I came across a stunning variation of what Aniljeet is trying to do to build his business empire. The CEO of the Israeli technology company, which was crafting a Web-based inter-operable instant messaging solution, was an insomniac. He worked 18 hours a day, all without a single cup of coffee. He made an awesome role model in an age when the dominant business mantra is speed-to-market. His HR team had a clear mandate to give preference to insomniacs when it came to hiring. The company, which had about 80 employees, had not met with much recruitment success on its insomniacs-first policy, but they did have a couple of medically certified insomniacs on rolls, who gave the rest of the company sleepless nights. The CEO — let us call him Abijah — had a sharp sense of reality. He often told his colleagues, "I can't keep these waking and working hours alone; I need company. It is another matter that insomniacs work without complaining and can be more productive." Not everyone believed him. They thought he wanted more work extracted from everyone. And who knows, perhaps that was Abijah's cunning goal. But as CEO he was careful to repeatedly emphasise that he had other, if not perfectly justifiable, reasons. Abijah once told me that this repetition of purpose before the rest of the company was necessary: "It emphasises the kind of person I am, and it also emphasises the culture I want built around me with people who do not mind working non-stop. Well, not everyone has to be an insomniac, as long as they work hard!"It is difficult to not marvel at this approach. But Aniljeet is not in Abijah's category. Abijah wants work done; Aniljeet wants work done in a way not easily subscribed to by everyone. Aniljeet's sensitive and intelligent departing HR head, Kapil Shankar, complains to him about the sale of Taffet India's home appliances business, in a bid to give an example of unethical business behaviour at the company. Aniljeet, however, responds without remorse saying, "Yes, I remember my dear man. You wanted me to sell it (the home appliances business) as is, whereas I needed to prepare it to present it. You thought I was dressing it up; I think I was getting it ready to be presentable. In business nobody buys a bad looking product!" There is truth in Aniljeet's observation that there is no point spending time, money and effort on packaging products that could have been sold in a brown wrapper. But it certainly makes him sound like an aggressive huckster. Most other CEOs would have astutely chosen refined words to say the same thing.The point is this: leaders today must be careful of what they say as well as how they say it. It does not matter if it is being said to an employee who has put in her papers, an employee who is just joining, a vendor who has been struck off the provider list or a partner in business. Why is this so? And how can Aniljeet stand to gain from appearing caring, perceptive and responsive to Kapil? How can he benefit if he wins Kapil over, not to his way of life or to his seemingly dubious value system, but to standing by Taffet India? The answer is simple. As Jeffrey Gitomer, the author of The New York Times bestseller The Little Red Book of Selling, says, "Getting your way is the gateway to getting what you want."Aniljeet is on a hurried quest to creating wealth. We are not debating the merits or the ethical and moral nature of his pursuit. All we need to understand is that effectively communicating what he wants is the key to getting what he wants. People, cultures, environments, dreams and desires differ between people. No leader can hope to blend every single employee into what today are largely manufactured corporate cultures (is HR listening?) that employees anyway view with a jaundiced eye. It is, however, important for leaders to communicate with employees in a way they would want employees to communicate with them. Honesty will beget honesty. Dishonesty will beget dishonesty. You will reap as you sow — this does not really need much reminding. At the bottom of all communication, as in life, is courage. To courageously communicate what is necessary is half the battle won. Generals have used courage to lead entire armies to improbable victories. They have practiced what is their dharma as true leaders: to observe and exercise courage in everything they do and in everything they say.Arun Katiyar is a content and communication consultant with a focus on technology companies(This story was published in Businessworld Issue Dated 12-09-2011)
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