One of the pains JRD once expressed was that he was so busy building Air India that he never built knowledge of creating a successful airline business. Invaluable knowledge was not captured and passed on. In some strange way, Indian business world still dwells in the `Shruti’ and `Smriti’ era. We don’t have a culture of documenting business history or corporate folklore. The art of storytelling, which was the central theme of passing on the wisdom through generations, has not yet been fully explored. Couple this with having no indigenous management or leadership research and you have a major challenge staring at you. The challenge of not having your own home grown leadership wisdom is forcing us to look westward and making us into a bad copy of the west.
The way information and knowledge is packaged and exported from the west is incredible. Since that import comes at a lower cost and faster pace, not many eastern industrial centres are investing in building their indigenous packages. Where developed, these packages are only consumed privately.
My sensibilities tell me that there is a distinct cultural tonality to Indian businesses and local stories, researches on leadership are long overdue. This lacuna has made us desperate enough to search modern day leadership wisdom in history and mythology by convicting characters like Rana Pratap, Ashoka, Shivaji, Rama, Krishna, Arjun, Chanakya etc to have foretold it all.
- Theory X type thinking has always been more successful in India for good reasons. Many people prefer to be led. They are always told what to do unlike their western counterparts who start making their own choices from a very early age. As a result, we find most leaders either looking for directions themselves or securing their positions by developing proximity to bigger leaders in their pack. So, the leadership style prescribed by the west is definitely talked about but not adequately practiced by many in India. The idea of good followership also sounds rather demeaning to Indians making us a certain type.
- Diversity and Inclusion seems to be the flavour of the season and there are departments created with serious budgets allocated. In spite of a great business case presented for their existence, this whole effort feels like a trophy in India which is a home to multiple cultures, six major religions, 22 constitutionally recognized languages, 1500 other dialects, 6 main ethnic groups that interface seamlessly each waking hour. People from all sections of society have built this nation and continue to do so. In many instances, the westerly winds were regressive in nature. For instance, when Taylor’s scientific management was gaining momentum in the west in fifties, squeezing as much labour out of workers for as low a wage as possible through standardization and optimization, Tatas had institutionalised gratuity, participative management, profit sharing and employee welfare schemes such as housing colonies, schools, hospitals etc. and Birlas, Walchand had adopted a more patriotic or nationalist model of industrialization not the capitalist one of the west.
So, there’s a good case therefore for us to stand in our conviction and own our indigenous philosophies of industrialization.
- CSR in its current corporate avatar is not indigenous to our culture. It is only arrogant and gratifying to think that we are donating so much money for such great causes, teaching those kids, giving shelter to destitute, adopting and electrifying villages. I am not saying one shouldn’t do it but going to town announcing that you do it is vulgar; showcasing it to bag big ticket contracts or to build brand image is distasteful and this shallowness is not native Indian it is learnt and adopted, perhaps from the capitalist west. We were always far ahead in building socially responsible businesses.
- HR folks at a certain company were quick to judge their own people as incompetent, lazy and duds because they had a difficulty relating to the competency assessment exercises of a multinational consulting company. Assessees belonged to a core industry with very limited exposure and because those exercises had a distinct western backdrop, cultural overtones our people could not crack them. Consulting company was rigid enough to not change the exercises and our people kept failing leading to a conclusion that the company has no talent. We have already seen how competency theory, assessments, engagement as tools of change and development have failed to generate desired results but no one seems to admit it because of the heavy investments made into them and having no alternative. Could we build our own models and frameworks instead of borrowing someone else’s?
These and many examples such as these indicate to me that there is haste in applying western principles, models and practices to our businesses without due diligence or localization. I sense a need to stop copying the west. I believe that the west is already looking at us for answers, if they aren’t already. In some businesses pressure to copy west exists because all the financial, technological investment comes from there but do our leaders stand their ground, are they rooted in a healthy self esteem about their heritage?
Indigenous research will help us be more alignment and in tune with our core. This will help restore some pride and create conviction about our own practices. It is time for us to nourish our roots of industrialization that were once soaked in patriotism. Political and business history of the last two hundred years does not make a sound case for us to follow the west blindly.
