Conductors And Corporates
Scientists will immediately think of conductors of heat and electricity; more so with the recent controversy around room-temperature super-conductors. Eight of the eleven authors of a research paper in Nature (which had claimed a breakthrough) have asked the journal to retract their article. Super-conductivity means conducting electricity through material without energy loss, typically requiring extremely low temperatures. Finding a material that does so at room temperature has long been the holy grail of materials science.
Conductors of a different type are common enough in India: every bus has one. Elsewhere, though, the driver doubles up as conductor, collecting the fare and controlling over-crowding. This seems a time-inefficient (though cost-efficient) system as the driver waits for boarding passengers to deposit their change or travel token into the collection box or to swipe their travel card. In contrast, in India, the conductor ushers’ passengers in as fast as possible, and gets the bus moving. He then collects fares as the bus – and you ‒ travel to your destination. Yet, with rising costs and pre-paid digital swipe-cards, jobs for bus conductors may soon get scarcer in India too.
Now, there may be openings for a new category of conductors; we may even call them super-conductors. This arises from the changing organisational landscape, combined with advances in technology. Accelerating technological advances are now permeating all aspects of business, requiring organisations to recruit experts, redesign processes, revamp systems, and re-examine structures. Traditionally, CEOs have a good understanding of the company’s business. Thus, a bank CEO has long experience and deep knowledge of banking. But what happens when a bank has to become – as some have ‒ a tech company in disguise? How much of the tech involved does the CEO comprehend?
As a specific example from the same sector, consider the design of new loan or savings products. This requires knowledge of finance and also of human behaviour (psychology). Today, both are better understood and modelled by using data analytics and artificial intelligence (AI). To share details and answer queries, the bank may use ChatGPT, which will be available 24x7, is more versatile and cost-efficient than humans. GenAI and other technologies could help to even individualise products, providing optimal solutions for each person’s need, while ensuring that risk is minimised and profit maximised.
Doing this – and analogous tasks from various sectors – requires experts from different fields working together as a team. Each one, a specialist in the specific field, would necessarily know more than the CEO. Like the bus conductor, the days of the control-and-command CEO are numbered: what orders can s/he give to a person whose field and expertise is way beyond his/her ken? The new role of the CEO is very different as will be the organisational structure.
Tomorrow’s CEO is more akin to a conductor: an orchestra conductor who draws on individual expertise, guides and coordinates all the musicians. S/he brings in each specialist as required, creating harmony, based on a common score. The conductor is recognised as the leader, getting the recognition and credit for the team effort. This also means an organisation structure that is more collegial than hierarchical, more like an educational institution than an army.
Far-sighted corporates need to redefine the CEO’s role and restructure the organisation. They may learn much by talking to orchestras and universities.
*The author loves to think in tongue-in-cheek ways, with no maliciousness or offence intended. At other times, he is a public policy analyst and author. His latest book is Decisive Decade: India 2030 Gazelle or Hippo (Rupa, 2021).
