HR Challenges in Senior Management Exits

Friends,

This issue needs immediate attention of HR Managers. How do we deal with Senior Management separations happening at regular intervals.

Management comprises of eminent experts who play a key role in companies growth and thereby contribute significantly enhancing both business prospects as well as higher profitability. What happens if there are high profile exits of a Software 'services companies ? Can the management sit back and relax showing total indifference to the separations.

We could see the event turning out to be a dampener to the overall morale and productivity. Employees working under these leaders tend to become demotivated and there will be total lack of direction to move forward in both business development and project deliverables. HR plays a crucial role in analyzing as well as coming out with a quick action plan to back fill these positions or better still move people within the organization to fill the void left by these Senior level exits.

From business perspective the following are the implications of high profile exits

1. Customer Dissatisfaction :

For any of the roles where these Managers are SPOCs or Account / Delivery Managers the customers are bound to make it an issue and in most cases pressurize the management to ensure continuity and also minimize the risks by having either present incumbent to continue or have a quick replacements done to ensure continuity and smoother operations.

2. Shadow Impact

In most Software Development Companies the bonding between the Leader and Managers are quite strong. More so in case where employees who are quitting after spending substantial period in excess of 15-20 years in the same company. They develop a strong bonding and any separation will definitely have a rub off effect. Sooner than later we could see few more leaving the company and following their leaders in a new set up.

3. Continuity

Unless properly planned there is likely to be disruption in the service offerings due to the absence of senior management staff. HR has to grapple with this and try to have well thought out plan to ensure that there is a business continuity. Companies will discuss withe clients how they are going to deal with separations and discuss in detail action items for implementation to avoid disruption.

4. Transition

It becomes very critical for the companies to ensure that the deliverables are not impacted by the high profile exits, Since in most cases there is a window of 3 months from the date of communication of quitting and actual relieving , it becomes imperative that the new incumbent has to come to speed and fill the void created due to the resignations.

Let us evaluate what HR should be pro actively doing in these kind of scenario where the companies are witnessing high level attrition

1. Succession Planning

Preparing a list of possible candidates who can be either promoted internally or moved from within the company, Succession Planning plays a key role in withstanding any kind of shocks of quits from top jobs / positions. Being an ongoing continuous process SP can throw up interesting alternatives within a company paving way for smoother transitions.

2. Quick Back Filling -

Easier said than done. The recruitment cycle extends to minimum period of 4-6 months to select, induct a new incumbent. The hiring at senior levels is a time consuming process as there are very few candidates who match the job profile besides looking for a cultural fit

3. Team Morale

The team morale needs to be kept high and it should absorb any kind of shocks as a result of separations at the top level. Keeping the team in confidence in decision making helps in having sense of belonging and to a large extent helps in having higher morale.

4. Communication Management

Official communication management plays a key role at a time when the entire world and all stake holders - investors, employees and customers alike keep asking about these separations. A clearly worded statement from the top CEO as to the contributions made by the employees who are quitting and also reasons for separation (wherever possible) and a clearly defined future plans to meet the gap should be communicated in public. This goes a long way in better understanding of the situation and keeping the stake holders informed is key to their continued support in difficult times.

5. Expectations Management

As a leading survey most people quit a reasonably senior position only after they think through and often painful separation. Period reviews besides annual appraisals are opportunities which Management uses to gauge thinking of Senior Directors, keeping their career aspirations and mapping to companies growth and making efforts to keep them engaged are essential to curb attrition. An effort is always made to ensure that exits do not happen at regular intervals.

6. Exit Analysis

Through this exercise HR and Management will try to know the real cause for the separation. This happens once the employee made up his / her mind to quit. An independent and transparent discussions will help analyse root cause of un happiness. Follow up actions should follow to ensure that these exits are stopped to maximum extent possible.

This reminds me of a words of poet Alfred Tennyson wrote in "The Brooks" - "For Men may come men may go but I go on forever".

HR and Senior Management should not be seen as being indifferent and act as if they are not bothered and taking this in a casual manner will be disastrous as this kind of thinking will spread more unhappiness and lead to more and more separations at all levels - Senior Management, Middle Management and all. A right step at right time is bound to have a major impact and we all should be ready to face this challenge at all times.

Raghav HR Guru

Founder - HRinIndia

How to develop Leaders - Infosys Experience

Matthew Frank Barney had a personal connection with India that goes back to 1997. The 41-year-old American met his Bengali wife, Shreya, in a "romantic semi-conductor factory" in Orlando. Last year, Barney also sealed a professional connection with India. He, Shreya and their two young kids moved to Mysore, where Barney joined Infosys Technologies for an assignment that will have a great bearing on how this iconic Indian software company is run and perceived for generations to come.

Barney is the head of leadership development at Infosys Leadership Institute. Never in the storied 29-year history of Infosys has so much hinged on this responsibility. The seven founders, each of them pillars in their own right, have built and run a company that is solid in its business construct and has values that are unimpeachable. But they are leaving, one by one.

Ashok Arora left in 1989 and NS Raghavan in 2000. Last year, Nandan Nilekani went to work for the government. In the next five years, the remaining four — NR Narayana Murthy, S 'Kris' Gopalakrishnan, SD Shibulal and K Dinesh — will also walk away from Infosys, in deference to Murthy's decree that all founders retire from operational roles by the age of 60 and from the board by 65. Says Barney: "It's an inflexion point for Infosys, and we need to prepare for it."

In his earlier assignments, Barney helped some of the world's top companies, including Motorola, AT&T and Lucent Technologies, to identify their next set of leaders. But, with Infosys, he's working for the first time with founders seeking to pass on the baton.

In July, Barney kicked off a hunt to identify 750 leaders, across levels, in Infosys — the largest such exercise the company has ever undertaken. It's not a random, one-time exercise to meet a pressing need.

It's a formal, structured response that is intended to become an integral part of the company. It will, continuously, identify the sparks in the company and groom them to become leaders.

Infosys has plenty of leaders, says TVS Mohandas Pai, who heads HR in Infosys and who brought in Barney.

"We believe we have around 100 leaders who can be CEOs of companies of different sizes," says Pai. "That doesn't mean, though, all of them can become the CEO of Infosys." What Infosys lacked all these years was a system that could efficiently identify, organise and hone that leadership, especially in the lower ranks. Which is what Barney and his seven-member team are putting in place.

To explain that system, one needs to start at the top. At the top, there is a 13-member board. Five of its

members are 'executive members', which means they also hold operational roles in Infosys . CEO Kris Gopalakrishnan and COO SD Shibulal are both members of the board.

Below the board is a four-member executive council: Subhash B Dhar, Chandra Shekar Kakal, BG Srinivas, and Ashok Vemuri. The highest decision-making body below the board, the executive council is the grooming place for the next CEO, CFO and COO.

But the beehive of activity is below the executive council. Out here, Barney has created a three-tiered pyramid that is intended to identify leaders at all levels from the 115,000 employees in Infosys.

At the first level, or tier-I, Infosys is looking to identify 50 Infoscians who can join the board in three to five years. "We want each leader to be outrageously successful before they even come to my process," says Barney of this set. At this leadership level, people typically have about 15 years of experience, and are geographical heads or business unit heads.

"We need to make sure that the person is passionate about business," says CEO Kris, of this elite pool. "Also, the person should know Infosys well. That's why we have always been saying that the leaders should come from inside and they should have a successful track-record."

At the second level, the hunt is for leaders capable of graduating to tier-I or running a business unit in three to five years. The target number is 150. The candidates here are vice-presidents and those reporting to unit heads, and have about 10 years of experience.

At the last level, the search is for leaders capable of graduating to tier-II position. This pool, which is intended to be 550-strong, is chosen from business and technology managers who are associate vice-presidents or below. They have about 5-7 years of experience. They are like the Suresh Rainas of the Indian cricket team.

Before Barney and this three-tiered structure, Infosys was identifying and grooming leaders, but it was more unstructured and the leadership pool was smaller. But as the company grew and its operations became more complex, as it went beyond its founders, the imperative for a leadership system increased.

"They are the first among major Indian companies to go through this transition," says John McCarthy, senior vice-president and principal analyst, Forrester Research. "It's always a challenge when you move the original management out. So far, they have done it in a transparent and orderly manner." But a CEO of a leading rival says the founders will be missed. "Infy is surely ahead in terms of planning its transition, but it will miss Murthy's vision and Nandan's ability to win and retain large accounts like BT," he says.

Professor David V Day, who is helping Infosys as an external consultant to identify sustainable leadership models, advises against benchmarking to the past. "First of all, you can never replace such visionary founders like Mr Murthy and others — they are really one of a kind. You first have to let go of the assumption that they are going to be fully replaced," he says. "The challenge then is how are we going to develop leaders we are going to need not just now, but also in the future."

Barney has some answers. "Beginning this year, we will have the 'tier top-off' process every year," he says. The 'tier top-off' is essentially a routine measurement of the numerical deficiency in the company's leadership pools. The last time, Infosys did such an exercise, it was 2007 and its leadership pool was about 50.

Barney and his seven-member team are now looking to do this annually, with a target size of 750. At every level, currently, Infosys is short. Against its earmarked number of 50 leaders in tier-I , Infosys has identified 37. Down the ranks, the vacuum increases. In tier-II, the number sought is 150 and it has identified 120. In tier-III , against 550, it has identified only 200.

At each level, the method of identifying talent is different. Tier-I is self-nominated. Infoscians who think they are up to it can apply. Their candidature is decided after an interview with the board. For tier-II, it's the tier-I leaders who work with the members of the Infosys Leadership Institute and the heads of business units to identify potential leaders.

Tier-III is through a computer-adapted assessment tool. "The tier-I leaders are fewer and relatively easier to find," says Barney, who speaks fluent Bangla. "But when I get to tier-III , there are nearly 10,000 people who can apply. With the tool, I can do it in less than half the time we did the same process."

Next comes the grooming

Infosys draws on several resources to groom leaders. These include mentoring, leadership workshops and simulation exercises. Mentoring is a big part of the initiation, and it runs through Infosys. Murthy mentors the board. The board members, including other founders, mentor 6-8 leaders at any point of time from the tier-I pool, which includes the four members of the executive council.

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Succession Planning - Are Indian Companies Ready ??

The tallest leader from the Tata Group for him is Jamsetji Tata. "JRD Tata is a legend, but the one who fascinates me is Jamsetji. His combination of influences, ideas and philosophies that he brought together and then made them work in practical terms, coupled with sheer single-minded commitment to India, at a time when the idea of India itself was emerging, is indeed special." In his recent work, TATA The Evolution of a Corporate brand, Morgen Witzel, senior consultant with the Winthrop Group of Business Historians, unfolds the story of the Tata brand in 200-plus pages. Witzel tells Sarika Malhotra, as the group is expanding its global footprint, it is the very high level of self awareness in the group that is making all the difference. "The group is aware of the challenges it faces very strongly. Throughout its history it believed in actions rather than words." From a branding perspective, even as the Nano has done the Tata brand a whole deal of good in terms of exposing it to the world and making them aware of it, however, the key challenge Witzel points out is to get the Tata brand in the open and make the transition form an Indian brand to a global brand, "that purely in branding terms is a task of the next ten years". Excerpts:

What makes for Tata's success as a brand?

Every big successful business chooses its own way to success. What made the Tata brand so successful is that the fact that they started off with a very strong set of values which were embedded in the group from the very beginning right from the time when Empress Mills was founded by Jamsetji Tata. And which the group stayed very much true to, down to the decade that followed. Strong brands are always built on strong values, principles and ethos and then communicating and sharing them with stakeholders. The Tata group has been really successful in doing that over a long period of time, consistently well. And that also has to do with consistency of leadership only five chairmen over a period of 140 years.

Succession is a very important issue at the moment and the big question is what after Ratan Tata?

Well, it's a great story and it's going to run and run. And my suspicion is that this decision is not going to be made that quickly. Having said that, one is sure that continuity of leadership is going to be a very crucial factor. When you look at other successful brands around the world, you see that the time of change in leadership is very often the time when companies have to track the value of the brand very carefully. For the Tata brand to continue to be successful and strong, it will need a leader who can carry on those values. Any succession is difficult at anytime for a large company, especially if you have had a long lasting and successful and dynamic leader at the helm. Look at the succession of GE when Jeffrey Immelt took over from Jack Welch, that was a thing that people discussed endlessly.

Any takeaways for the new leader?

It is very interesting to look back at the Tata Groups's history and learn from there. What were the challenges that Dorabji Tata faced when he took over from Jamsetji? Did he continue on the projects that had begun like the Taj and Tata Steel (TATASTL.BO : 531.2 0) and bring them forward and make sure that all the hard work that went into building these went on? JRD, in turn, had to build on that foundation at a time when the group was getting diversified and it was coupled with the challenges of independence and involved adapting to a new business environment. Go back and look at how JRD responded to that. Another sea change was with economic liberalisation, which coincides with JRD stepping down; how did Ratan Tata respond to that. Look back at the past leaders, how they responded and take lessons from that. It's often said the first thing a business leader should do after taking over office is to start looking for a successor. The one thing that distinguishes long-lasting business is the ability to locate in a timely manner a good successor ready for office. And GE is a pretty good example of that. GE down through the decades has had a succession of very powerful and dynamic leaders who were brought in the process early.

You mention how Tata's Corus acquisition of 2007 confirmed Tata Group's global aspirations and that it was strong enough to compete with global giants and how the Indian media led the way by creating stories about Tata's global ambitions and helping create a perception of Tata as a global player, a perception that is a bit over exaggerated at the moment. What made you say this?

In recent years, Tatas have expanded overseas, now at least 60% of their income comes from outside of India. They are much more involved in international business than they were ten years ago. Some of the press I was reading a year ago suggested that Tata is now widely recognised as a global business. But I am sorry to say it isn't. It's on the road to being a global business. In fact, there are very few truly global businesses. Coca-Cola, IBM, P&G, Microsoft only a dozen can claim to be truly global. Most businesses are working towards it. Tata is on its way to becoming a global business, but it isn't there yet. I also reckon that the India press on the whole exaggerates the awareness of the Tata brand overseas, which is very patchy outside. There will be people on the Tata Consultancy (TCS.NS : 864.7 -13.15) street not knowing they are using Tata Consultancy because they will be using them as clients or competitors. But if you ask them, what do you know about Tata group, the brand, do you know that a majority of Tata Sons is owned by a charitable trust? Most of them would not. They don't know what the values, history and traditions are. Same in the steel industry, same in the chemicals industry they know their bit of Tata but they don't know the whole culture. But when that changes, you will see Tata make the transition from being an Indian to a global company with Indian roots.

You point out that in the late 1980s the group was disintegrating and was marked by factionalism. How did the turnaround happen for the group?

A decision that Ratan Tata took initially was that the group needed to be not centrally controlled, but to be more united. And the brand was absolutely crucial in this. One of the key things he said regarding a corporate brand is about uniting the group and not about controlling the group and making sure that people share the same values. And that was a pivotal moment that brought the group back to its heart and beginnings and that I believe laid the foundation for the growth of the group ever since.

So do you credit Ratan Tata for the brand image the group has acquired?

Among others, yes. Prior to the 1990s, Tata made no attempt to develop a corporate brand. Ratan Tata had said, "We had a reputation, but we did not have a brand." I think it was his insight and his commitment to the idea that made it happen. As a leader he led the way in brand building through various exercises. His commitment to quality and innovation reinforced the brand and he emerged as the champion of these. And this has been one of his most significant achievements in many ways to get the message to the heart of the Tata group.

Like other global leaders, during his recent visit to India, David Cameron also visited Infosys (INFOSYS.BO : 2864.05 0). Given the rising trend, how do you position a relatively younger company like Infosys vis- -vis the Tata group?

Outside of India, Infosys stands for a lot of things that India stands for today. Western people think of India as a place of very high calibre and quality in IT and software solutions. Infosys in brand terms has been a world leader for a long time in this sphere. Infosys, TCS and Wipro (WIPRO.NS : 432.95 +1.75) have gone up from India and made a name. I remember a report three years ago from a big international management consultancy which said that India is very good at soft skills and software management, but India is very bad at heavy industry, whereas China is very good at heavy industry but not very good at research and development. Which is just not the case. China spends more on R&D per head of population than the US does. In India, the Tata and Birla group are very good at every industry and are very innovative. But perception is everything. And the perception in the West is that India is not good at heavy industry. Tata brand has been able to make an impact outside India with TCS. Tata Motors (TATAMOTORS.BO : 894.35 +33.5), Tata Steel and the likes have been relatively less known outside India because of the perception that India only does software good. Everything about brands is about perceptions. The brand is the sum of perceptions that everyone has about it it's the experiences people have of products and services, it's the stories people tell each other about them. And brand India today is just associated with IT and outsourcing, but nobody knows yet just what India can do in building cars, watches and engineering and mechanical things.

You refer to the Tata group as being 'good and great', indeed a special combination that carries immense expectations. Any lessons that other corporate houses can learn from the group?

Every great brand is unique in its own way. The key things to learn are absolutely delivering on your promises day in and day out. As Ratan Tata says, 'If you fail to do what you promise, then everything gets thrown away. Your words then have no meaning to anyone.' The other thing is to recognise that business are not their just to serve shareholders and customers. They are there to serve the customers, employees, shareholders, suppliers and the community at large. And you ask any expert on branding and they will tell you exactly the same thing. You have to build a 360-degree view and balance the needs of everyone. Yes, it's a huge expectation to live up to. But such expectation is placed on every great brand. Apple, Toyota, Nokia live with this. And Toyota last year struggled when it appeared that it was not living up to its customers' expectations. So it's for every brand to keep living up to its customer's expectations. Find out what your customers want, deliver it to them day after day, month after month and year after year and in the process exceed their expectations. And that's the secret of good branding. It sounds pretty simple, but it's actually very hard to execute consistently over time.

You interestingly refer to an instance when other Indian groups were making mansions, the Tata group was building a cancer institute. Lesson in brand building here?

Again, it's about perceptions. These two developments were reported in the press almost together. It's very obvious when people think about the Tata's they think of one thing and when they think about other business houses, they think of other things, simply because that's what's being reported and talked about. So it could be a matter of how you manage your image, what stories go in the press, but it's also a question of your actions. I am not passing any judgments either way, how people spend their money is up to them. But it's a matter of the image you present to the world at large and the images are different in the two cases. And that in the long run go towards the perception of making a brand.

Constant Gardener - Subroto Bagchi

Subroto Bagchi has been watching leaders bloom at MindTree. Actually, he is not merely watching.

Raja Shanmugam will don a new leadership role at MindTree Consulting in April 2009. He will give up being an operations manager, designated senior vice-president and head of Asia Pacific with the Bangalore-based information technology services company, and take on a pure corporate social responsibility, or CSR, activity of MindTree Foundation.

After 21 years in the IT industry, the last nine with MindTree, Shanmugam owes this sharp change in course to 16 hours, spread over four sessions of four hours each, with MindTree co-founder Subroto Bagchi, designated Gardener and director.

“Self awareness leads to mental capacity enhancement. It sharpens the emotional quotient, or EQ, that most managers with high IQ (intelligence quotient) may lack,” says Bagchi, who also gave us a written FAQ on the subject. He conducts these leadership sessions, dubbed gardening, over a three-month period.

Said to be the only one of its kind in the world, this leadership programme is unusual, and may appear unstructured, but has its own rigour and method. “It’s voluntary. There are no expectations and no deliverables. It’s about behavioural changes. In a way, it’s like interacting with a counselor,” says Shanmugam.

At the sessions, Shanmugam did not discuss how to improve his job profile. Instead, he asked himself deeper questions like who he was and what he would be five years down the line. “I was humbled to realise that the organisation was not as dependent on me as I thought. It was also a liberating experience, and I discussed this with Bagchi and hence the new role,” he says.

Shanmugam’s is among several careers, and lives, that are being manicured by Gardening. Radha R, vice-president and head-datawarehousing and business intelligence practice, has been in the IT industry for over 18 years, the last eight with MindTree.

“I was labelled a super-achiever at MindTree. I couldn’t have asked for anything better. Yet, of late, I had doubts that I was doing something worthwhile in the company. And it was then that I got a call from this company which offered me a very good role at nearly four times my current salary. Just to test my market value, I went for the interviews (12-13 rounds of them), and finally got selected. I would be lying if I said the offer was not tempting. I could have retired in peace,” says Radha.

She chose not to. She remains with MindTree and hopes to be there for many more years. “Bagchi gave me a whole new perspective. Not once did he tell me to stay back. But the interactive sessions helped me realise that my ties with MindTree were too strong to sever. I have now also learnt to connect with my 400-odd subordinates in a better way,” says Radha.

Shanmugam and Radha are two of the 35 “Top 100” leaders that Bagchi has identified for Gardening since he moved from being the chief operating officer to Gardener in April this year. The top 20 Leaders of Aztecsoft, recently acquired by MindTree, are also part of this.

But why ‘Gardener’?
Why not chief mentor, chief strategy officer, chief fun officer, or something else?

“No, I am not a chief anything,” asserts Bagchi. The company did think of head Gardener as his title, but a board member said the prefix smacked of hierarchy. The symbolism is that titles do not nourish you. “I am sending that message to our leaders. I am who I am, call me by whatever name. Titles are as meaningful or meaningless as the person holding them,” says Bagchi.

There are strong echoes of gardening in what he does. No plant reports to the Gardener; the Gardener attends to the plants in their time and space. This would mean interacting with the plants (or leaders) even during weekends, since it is voluntary and one-on-one.

“The time has come for all of us to take the idea of organisation, titles, roles and everything else in between, to the next level. The so-called modern organisation we created for ourselves and then became a product of is an extension of the factory-economy of the last century,” says Bagchi.

A leader can approach Bagchi and work with him on all kinds of issues that bother him, concern him or intrigue him, and seek the Gardener out as a sounding board, ask him questions, talk to him or demand that he share what happened in his life.

Bagchi sees people’s lives as a spectrum. At one end, it consists of “personal-personal” issues, like the relationship with a spouse. At the other are “professional-professional” issues, such as, why should one not get a higher raise or how does one get one’s boss to see to it that one gets promoted. “I would not engage at the two extreme ends of the spectrum,” he says.

For instance, Shanmugam and Radha R could have refused when Bagchi invited them for the sessions without the fear of reprisal since the sessions are voluntary.

In the first session, Bagchi listens while the participant talks. Sometimes, even they are surprised by their own answers. In the second session, Bagchi gives his perspective on the participant’s reflections and “works towards building a shared understanding of who the participant is”.

The third session deals with, “Where do we go from here?” Together, the Gardener and the Plant may decide that the latter needs more EQ, or more analytical skills, or a special project (sometimes, it is just a field visit) to enhance his self-awareness.

The fourth and final session becomes a platform for other engagements. “These four sessions, and the subsequent engagements, help me build a leadership of one,” says Bagchi.

Why only the top 100?
“Growth in any company is generally about the top 100 managers,” reasons Bagchi. The sessions have no readymade script, and the top 100 are not necessarily the best 100, says Bagchi with a wry smile. “I do hope that the top 100 do have some of our best people, though. Otherwise, we have a problem right there.”

Bagchi would engage with the top 100 and touch at least half of them in the first year. The hope is that this would make them engage differently with their own people. “When people look at themselves in new light, it is the organisation seeing itself in new light,” he says.

In future, Bagchi hopes to create many roles that would have nothing to do with seniority, title, power, or entitlement, but focus on long-standing issues and make an impact without depending on structural sanctions.

MindTree has committed to support this endeavor for five years. However, there will be a “stock-taking” in February next year.

Apart from leadership, the other key thing for an organisation is size. This requires what Bagchi terms “active deconstruction”. How do you make an organisation all the while effectively smaller, even as it becomes larger?

One way is to look at the organisation as a “community of communities”. So, people are not required to belong to or identify with a monolith. They can engage with and participate in a community of their own choice. They can define its agenda, its leadership and all that is voluntary. Volunteerism begets innovation.

MindTree has 45 such communities, which work as vehicles of innovation and a powerful support system for employees. “But they are also shy of structure and management. As Gardener, I would give time to these communities of practice in a ‘pull-push’ manner. I would work with them on the ground to question their purpose, their vision, sit with them, listen-in to their deliberations and sometimes take them outside MindTree and sometimes bring the outside world to them,” explains Bagchi.

The idea of working with the communities of practice, which, again, are voluntary, is to “deconstruct the largeness of the enterprise”.

But it's not HR…
Bagchi’s role is independent of the human resources, or HR, division’s activities. “In fact, I do not even report to Ashok Soota (MindTree’s chairman & managing director),” he clarifies.

So how does Gardening gel with the overall objectives of the organisation? Puneet Jetli, senior vice-president and head-global people function, says: “It’s the philosophy of the company, and it’s how we perceive leadership. Had it been under the HR umbrella, there could have been many constraints. Besides, the sessions are personal in nature. Bagchi is under no obligation to share any of the findings with us. This, however, is another potent platform for the holistic development of our managers into leaders.”

In the organisation of tomorrow, structure and non-structure will co-exist. Hierarchy will not go away; it will learn to work with the hetroarchy. That is why Procter & Gamble is engaging with FaceBook and creating Capessa.

“We have to extend the same rule of engagement to the internal customer. We have to redo the linkage, reinvent ways to collaborate with, expand and impact that individual very differently than during the end of factory-economy that stayed content with the term ‘white collar.’ The knowledge economy may indeed have as many people without collars as with — forget the colour though. That is how we can engage with people who visit you at Second Life (the website where you can live a virtual life) even before they send you their résumé in real life,” Bagchi explains.

Bagchi firmly believes that communities are the number one source of knowledge, and therefore meets the 45 Community Champions every quarter for half a day. “I represent a non-structural role, hence I’m welcome,” he explains. The MindTree management provides the physical infrastructure, digital content management system to feed data, collaboration tools, “and then gets out of the way”.

Bagchi gives two days to individual communities “for what they want me to do for them”. He visits campuses so that they begin to think differently. “As you can see, these are input measures. In roles like these, input measurements are more critical in the first 12 months. In addition, I want to see substantial content creation with an internal blog”.

It is important for an organisation to have distributed leadership so that some can focus on the structure and some on the non-structure. Some can focus on the hierarchy by belonging to it, and some on the hetroarchy by working with the invisible folks in the organisation. The distributed leadership must be emotionally secure — its members must have a higher sense of purpose that they are not creating fiefdom; they are creating a living organisation that is larger than the sum of its parts.

Authored by : Leslie D'Monte
Source : Business-standard.com