By Stephen Manallak
During more than a decade dealing with India, leading trade missions, writing for Indian business media and advising on cross-cultural issues, Stephen Manallack compiled the secrets of this new Indian business success while preparing his new book for this growing market, Soft Skills for a Flat World (Tata McGraw-Hill). His latest book is Communicating Your Brand (Vivid)
Indian companies are expanding globally, with icons like Jaguar and Land Rover now in Indian hands. Indians now lead major American companies such as Microsoft, Pepsi, Google, Adobe, Cognizant and more. Why is this corporate success happening?
The real secret of Indian success can be found in the ten mindsets of Indian business leaders.
- Acceptance of change
Indians have acceptance of change hardwired into their psyche – they thrive on it. Lakshmi Mittal is Britain’s wealthiest man and a non-resident Indian who heads up the world’s biggest steel manufacturer, ArcelorMittal, and he has clear views on leadership and change: “Always think outside the box and embrace opportunities that appear – wherever they might be.”
Mukesh Ambani, Managing Director of Reliance Industries Limited, has built a strong conglomerate based around petrochemicals and good management thinking. His approach is to build a structure that adapts to change: “The organizational architecture is really that a centipede walks on a hundred legs and one or two don’t count. So if I lose one or two legs, the process will go on, the organization will go on, the growth will go on.”
This unique Indian view of change (they do not fight it when there is little chance) is one key to success and was well stated by Dr. A.P.J. Abdul Kalam, former President of India (2002-07): “I was willing to accept what I couldn’t change”.
- Live in the moment, now
Living more in the moment makes India’s business leaders very adaptable and opportunistic. This mindset shows up in small ways – arrive in Mumbai with an idea and no appointments, and pretty soon you will be seeing the people at the top.
Rarely does this flexibility happen in the West, where lead times are long and appointment secretaries plan years – not so in India.
Being in the “now” results from learning how to control the mind – Anil Ambani, Managing Director of Reliance ADAG: “Concentration can be cultivated. One can learn to exercise willpower, discipline one’s body, and train one’s mind.”
Kumar Mangalam Birla is the Chairman of The Aditya Birla Group and he also counsels leaders to look after ‘the mind’: “Leaders must have the ability to mind your mind, which means quickly recognizing when one is wrong and changing track accordingly. Also, far from being egocentric, they should have a great sense of humility.”
Indian cricketer Sachin Tendulkar is a great example of focusing on the now: “I am not thinking too far ahead, just want to take it one thing at a time.”
- Generosity
One of the inspirational features of Indian business leaders is how they build generosity into their personal and business lives – while too many measure successful leadership in the West just by the share price.
Ratan Tata epitomises the Tata Group’s success and ethics: “Some foreign investors accuse us of being unfair to shareholders by using our resources for community development. Yes, this is money that could have been made for dividend payouts, but it also is money that’s uplifting and improving the quality of life of people in the rural areas where we operate and work. We owe them that.”
- Patience, not anger
Of the great texts of Hinduism, the Bhagavad Gita, is an influential part of the education of so many Indian business leaders and it sums all this up so beautifully: “Delusion arises from anger. The mind is bewildered by delusion. Reasoning is destroyed when the mind is bewildered. One falls when reasoning is destroyed.”
The Indian thought process enables good leaders to focus on their reactions to events, which they see as more important than the events themselves.
- Ethics and respect
While many see India as held back by corruption – particularly at the government level – the companies having global success are remarkable for their corporate governance.
My exposure to this aspect of India began in 2005 when the Chairman and Chief Mentor of Infosys, Narayana Murthy, spoke about corporate governance and morality in business: “We follow one principle – the softest pillow is a clear conscience”.
Forbes Magazine has written “Infosys is a model of transparency, not just for corporate India, but for companies everywhere…”
To understand the different starting points of many Indian business leaders, consider the views of Mukesh Ambani, Chairman, and Managing Director of petrochemical and diversified industries giant, Reliance Industries Limited: “As long as we place millions of Indians at the centre of our thought process, as long as we think of their welfare, their future, their opportunities for self-realization we are on the right track.”
- Problems are a gift
Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw, Chair and Managing Director, Biocon Ltd, shows how this works: “My philosophy in life is that every failure can be converted into a success. As somebody said, defeat is temporary but giving up is permanent. The way I approached it was that I am going to be just not brainwashed by perceptions. I thought let me do it my way.”
Another way of expressing this comes from Swami Sivananda: “Crave for a thing, you will get it. Renounce the craving, the object will follow you by itself.”
The Indian-born Lakshmi Mittal, head of Arcelor Mittal, knows about tough times and has this view: “Everyone experiences tough times, it is a measure of your determination and dedication how you deal with them and how you can come through them.”
- Right Words
To Westerners, much of Indian corporate communication can be frustratingly low-key – but the power of it is finding the right words for the right time.
Ratan Tata modernised the Tata Group and expresses this communication style this way: “I do not know how history will judge me, but let me say that I’ve spent a lot of time and energy trying to transform the Tatas from a patriarchal concern to an institutional enterprise.
It would, therefore, be a mark of failure on my part if it were perceived that Ratan Tata epitomises the Group’s success.
What I have done is establish growth mechanisms, play down individuals, and play up the team that has made the companies what they are. I, for one, am not the kind who loves dwelling on the ‘I’. If history remembers me at all, I hope it will be for this transformation.”
By turning to Indian philosopher, Krishnamurti (1895-1986) we can find much of the thinking that leads to a low-key but sincere communication style: “If we try to listen we find it extraordinarily difficult because we are always projecting our opinions and ideas, our prejudices, our backgrounds, our inclinations, our impulses; when they dominate we hardly listen to what is being said.”
- Leaders as gurus
One Indian business leader who encapsulates India’s leadership style is retail champion, Kishore Biyani, who was born into a small trading family, and created Future Group, a $1 billion company that includes many leading retail brands.
Working for Biyani would be an adventure: “We can chop and change anything we do, anytime. Nothing is constant for us. Nothing is constant here. We believe in destroying what we have created.” Destroy and create – two great themes of ancient and modern Hindu thought and now part of Indian business leadership.
TT Srinivasaraghavan is the Managing Director of Sundaram Finance, a diverse company that is active in savings deposits, mutual funds, car finance, insurance, home loans, business process outsourcing, IT and software and logistics.
TT is a most honoured business leader in his home city of Chennai (once Madras) and expressed it this way – that Sundaram is first a family and second a company. Fundamental to his business is ‘trust’ and what he calls a ‘chain of faith’ that flows from people who trust each other — from the board through to senior management.
As head of Sundaram, he talks about the old Indian way of learning through having a teacher and a disciple – the ‘guru’ system. Sundaram in a way tries to build a management system like that. As a result, when they hire it is never at the top searching for some miracle from outside – they hire for the bottom and build people up.
- Life as a spider web
While the West strives for simplicity and certainty, Indian business leaders know that life is like trying to find your way through a spider web – where does it begin, where does it lead, and who can tell?
Kumar Mangalam Birla, Chairman of The Aditya Birla Group, inspires us: “Well, I think the golden rule I can think of is the fact that you must follow your passion and do something close to your heart. And I think that that’s very important, well, to be successful and to be happy.”
Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw, Chair and Managing Director, Biocon Ltd said: “I believe I have created intellectual wealth from very frugal resources and that is what I am acknowledged for. I do hope I can inspire ordinary people to build enterprises from very little monetary resources but a rich mind to succeed. I am proud of having created a valuable organization and that is the wealth I am proud of Biocon is really about building intellectual wealth and not about creating material wealth. It is the opportunity that the company has provided to hundreds of scientists that matter to me.”
- Leading by not conforming
The Western dilemma of conformity versus creativity was summed up by the great Indian thinker, Jiddu Krishnamurti, who said: “So, having made life into a technical process, conforming to a particular pattern of action, which is merely technique, naturally we have lost confidence in ourselves, and therefore we are increasing our inward struggle, our inward pain and confusion.”
Thinking of others rather than “profits first” is one way Indian leaders do not conform. The wisdom of this was pointed out by Paramahansa Yogananda: “Business life need not be a material life. Business ambition can be spiritualized. Business is nothing but serving others materially in the best possible way.”
Sadhguru uses a sporting analogy: “You must have the fire of wanting to win but also the balance to see that if you lose, it is okay with you.”
Now, of course, there is the inspiration of Prime Minister Narendra Modi – who is a “can do” leader who stays true to Indian values while succeeding in dealing with a rising investment from the West. Time to come on board for the India Express!