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In Leadership Shastra, Mr. Pradeep Chakravarthy examines how developing a comprehension of our past could be the key to understanding our own selves, our actions, motivations and of those around us. Mr S L Narayanan, Group Chief Financial Officer, Sun Group, led the discussion with Mr Pradeep Chakravarthy, Author; Mr R Seshasayee, Vice Chairman, Hinduja Group and Mr Venky Rajgopal, Managing Director, Indian Terrain Fashions Ltd.
S L Narayanan (SLN): You are from a family of very
seemingly disparate things together and putting a book
successful businessmen. Knowing the social milieu today, it
out of it. I have been speaking about the applicability
is normal for boys from business families to get into either
of
engineering or finance. You have chosen a very different
leadership for about a decade now. I hear two answers:
path. What really were the motivations and how did this
One, they say, “I hated history in school. It was
book on Leadership Shastra germinate?
irrelevant and boring. Why do I need to know when a
Pradeep: Two things. One, I studied in a school called 'The School' run by Krishnamurti Foundation of India. In retrospect, I find that we were taught to make connections between things which people normally would not make connections. I have been able to
history
to
management,
self-awareness
and
king died and when he lived?” Two, the other group of people said, "I loved history in school. The teacher made it interesting with the stories." So it seemed that the story telling ability of the teacher mattered more than history itself.
connect leadership and history reasonably well. The second reason: my dad never had to run a company. It
So I suddenly saw history was
meant I had a lot more freedom. My first understanding
very similar and very different.
of nuances in organizational culture came when I did
It goes back to Yudhishtra's
my two years of internship at four different TVS companies, which was a remarkable blessing. In that two years of six months each, in four different companies, I understood that within the larger TVS
quote, "The most wonderful thing in the world is that everyday people are dying, but
culture, there were many differences as well. All of
the people who live think that's
those experiences served me well, in putting two very
not going to happen to them."
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Similar, yet different
The Deccan Sultans and Unity of Command
My understanding of history was very different. I
SLN: The chapter on the Deccan Sultanates talks about five
had the privilege of spending summer vacations in
kings who were constantly at loggerheads with each other
Tirunelveli, my mother's ancestral house and I was the
and, therefore, they could never vanquish the Vijayanagar
sixth generation to live in that. It was about 10,000
empire under Krishna Deva Raya and his successor Rama
square feet. It still stands and the upstairs alone was
Raya. Then one fine morning, they sank their differences,
about 5,000 square feet. It was filled with junk that
presented a united front, went with a vengeance and ran
belonged to six generations before me and I very vividly
over their neighbour leaving the once magnificent city of
remember a math notebook that was from about 1900,
Hampi in ruins. With that as the context, I want Mr
where some ancestor of mine in an ink pen had
Seshsayee with his iconic experience in Unilever and Ashok
scribbled about how he or she hated math and had
Leyland, to throw some light on how simple things like unity
drawn a little doodle. Such visuals are powerful, aren't
of command or a constancy of purpose play a key role in
they? It showed me that here was someone who did not
organizational effect.
like math like I did; also, the style of the writing, the doodle, the text, the font and the paper were very different from mine. So I suddenly saw history was very similar and very different. It goes back to Yudhishtra's quote, "The most wonderful thing in the world is that everyday people are dying, but the people who live think that's not going to happen to them." 26
MAR 2022
Seshasayee: It is very critical to have unity of purpose or unity of command and consistency of purpose. That's fundamental to not merely success, but even survival. The Indian corporate history is replete with instances of family groups within a company fighting with each other or looking at cross purposes, creating a lot of friction and eventually impacting the
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company and its very survival. With the exception of a
few, like the TVS group, large businesses which were
If you find that the structure is not appropriate to the strategy
started by families across the world have found that
or the processes are not in
it's very difficult to take them forward successfully beyond the fourth or fifth generation. A common
place, sooner or later, that
purpose is important but having said that, I want to
business will get into trouble.
make some provocative observations. It is not about just the unity people or groups of people working for
~ Seshasayee
a common purpose but the need for alignment of different aspects of running a business—the strategy, structure, people and processes—all have to come together for a common purpose in a seamless fashion.
completely in a shambles, with weapons strewn all over
If you find that the structure is not appropriate to
the place and not organized as well as you've done. But,
the strategy or the processes are not in place, sooner
you know, he wins wars. His weapons are constantly in
or later, that business will get into trouble. But it is not
use."
necessary that all of them must have equal importance. Sometimes strategy becomes extremely critical and even a little bit of weaknesses or lapses in the processes or the structure could be more than made good by a wonderful strategy. I have seen a telecom company that was extremely successful as it captured the imagination of the market. Their back office was in a mess for quite some years. They made aggressive moves on strategy and then managed to get the back office in shape. In Tamil literature, there is a story about poetess Avaiyar and King Athiyaman, who was the chieftain of a small fiefdom. She was very friendly with the king and admired his winning the battles and the way he was expanding his kingdom and sang richly in his praise. His rival king who became jealous of the way that Avaiyar praised his counterpart, asked the poetess to visit his fiefdom as well. She finally relented. The rival chieftain took her around his palace and armoury. Avaiyar saw all that, came back and said, "Everything is wonderful. The weapons are in the right places and polished very well. But Athiyaman's armoury is
This is a very important lesson for leaders to focus on strategy, much more than spending time in housekeeping. There was a company that I greatly revered. In the 90s, I took my senior management for a visit to this company because it is one of the champions of TPM. I wanted my colleagues to learn from this company as to how they did that. After spending almost day, we came back and said, 'Excellent. This is really the way that we should go about.' However, that company ran into trouble pretty soon because the leadership was too focused on the processes, somewhat like Motorola, which pioneered the concept of Six Sigma. This is not to mean that the processes are unimportant. They are very critical, but sometimes strategy is more important than structures; sometimes structures and people are more important than processes; and sometimes, the process becomes very critical. You need to look at the context in that moment and decide on the most important thing to do.
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You have to bring to the table
the HCL organisation where everybody was competing
everything that you have and it
with each other and then came a day, when the unified
is not just courage and blind
front made more sense and the company restructured
optimism. It is the
pretty quickly.
determination to build
Malik Ambar and Indian Terrain
something which will last.
SLN: Venky, you had a remarkable career starting off as an IPS officer, then as an entrepreneur. I just couldn't help draw
~ Venky
a parallel with the life of Malik Ambar, which has been narrated beautifully by Pradeep. Malik Ambar is a slave from somewhere in Africa and landed in Arabia. He was traded
SLN: Let me share my own experience from my days in HCL Technologies Limited. HCL Technologies was a listed company, which was mostly into outsourced R&D services. There was another company called HCL Infosystems, which is their hardware company. There was a joint venture with Perot Systems of Dallas, which is called HCL Perot systems. The three companies had HCL prefix and all three competed in the market. As long as the Y2K boom was there, there was enough pie for every company. So it really didn't bother. Post-9/11, when the market went for a toss, there was a lot of negative feedback from prospective customers. The ERP business of HCL Infosystems, which is an island of software business in a largely hardware company, was butting heads with the ERP business of HCL Tech and which ran into trouble with another team from HCL Perot systems. So Mr Shiv Nadar decided to demerge the ERP business of HCL Info systems and merged it with HCL Tech; HCL Infosystems became a pure play hardware company after that. He
and some other former slave bought him. Finally, he wins his release. He lands up in India and with his charisma, builds an army of mercenaries. He was extremely effective as a local warlord, supplementing the aggression of rulers and kings who hired him. I'm not saying that you're a mercenary! (laughs) But somewhere I saw that you started your career as an IPS officer and then morphed into an entrepreneur and a hugely successful one at that. Can you share some of your experiences?
Venky: Malik Ambar is a character that inspires tremendous curiosity. How did a black man—a slave from Ethiopia come to India as a slave, remained a slave for 20 years of his life and then break free to become a leader and ruler? Given the circumstances of that time, stitching the resources to lead is a remarkable story. Perhaps, the difference between him and me, on a lighter note is that he started as a slave and all that lay ahead of him was his ambition, desire and determination to become what he eventually became. In my case, at least, that's how my parents thought, I started as a prince—a fourth-generation police officer and ended up as a slave—an entrepreneur!
divested the 50% stake that HCL Tech had in HCL Perot Systems and after that, they never really looked back,
We are family of civil servants, typical Delhi
as there was a unified offering. So, at a time when the
University students where every other guy along with
market was big, there was some creative tension inside
me wanted to join the IAS, IPS and IFS, that was the
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creme de la creme as we were told in the academy at
The export was completely cartelised. There were only six
that time. To give that up after 11 years was like
guys from India who managed
choosing to become a slave!
to control that entire thousand
Adversity is a word used in every in every context,
—odd crores of rupees trade of
whether it is in battle or life. How do you really
garment export to Russia. My
overcome it and over a period of time, consistently
reaching Moscow itself was
establish a situation where that adversity no longer is at your doorstep? That transformation needs a level of
absolutely intolerable for them
perseverance, determination and courage, which sees
because I presented a threat.
you through that period. Let me tell you a little story which best enumerates this. Celebrity
Fashion
was
~ Venky a
minuscule
apparel
manufacturing set up in the year 1990. Twelve months into its existence, the company was nearly extinguished.
the venue where the exhibition was to take place, the
I had no money and no background. It clearly was a bad
organizers looked at my invitation and said, "Sorry we
idea. At that point, a friend of mine, who later went on
don't have your name here. So we can't give you
to become the Indian ambassador to the US and who
accommodation or a place to put up your products in
knew about my quitting the IPS job and now going
the exhibition."
bankrupt as an entrepreneur, asked me, "Why don't you try Moscow? Russia is a destination to get some business."
Just imagine! It was one year after having quit the IPS. I had two kids and was on the verge of bankruptcy. This was my last attempt and here there was this cartel
It's a long story and eventually I managed to reach
which prevented me from accomplishing whatever I
Moscow to participate in an exhibition for apparel
had gone there to do. This is where perhaps my
export to Russia. The export was completely cartelised.
background, the training of the Indian Police Service
There were only six guys from India who managed to
helped me.
control that entire thousand—odd crores of rupees trade of garment export to Russia. My reaching Moscow itself was absolutely intolerable for them because I presented a threat.
At that time, I did not feel fear. I felt extreme anger at what these people were doing. And I said, 'Listen, I'm an Indian citizen and I have to be protected.' I marched to the residence of the Indian Ambassador. He was a
The day I reached Moscow—my first travel overseas
dramatic personality in the Indian Foreign Service then.
—it was around minus 20 degrees. The Customs there
I somehow persuaded him to see me. And I vividly
were told to vandalize my samples as if they were
remember that moment. It was an afternoon in Moscow.
checking it. They gave me an accommodation to stay
I was unbathed for three days and I had no place to
and I had no idea about it and ended up 40 kilometres
stay. I told him the story and beseeched him saying, "If
outside Moscow City. When I finally found my way to
you are an ambassador and protecting us, you have to
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ensure that I am allowed to present what I came here
can overcome or overwhelm you. Once you've embarked
for." Now it could have gone anyway. I remember he
on a journey, you can be very sure that adversity is your
was smoking a pipe. He put it down and said, "If you
first companion. You have to bring to the table
can go and have a shave and wear a suit, come to the
everything that you have and it is not just courage and
Embassy for dinner."
blind optimism. It is the determination to build
That night, I had dinner with him where he introduced me to the Russian Trade Commissioner to India and that was all that was needed in the next 24 hours. I got a place to display. The Ambassador himself accompanied the Trade Commissioner to visit my minuscule stall and destiny worked. I managed to find a small foothold in business in Russia.
something which will last.
Aurangazeb and Unwieldy Companies SLN: The Mughal empire under Aurangazeb extended from Kabul on the west to Chittagong in the east and from Kashmir to Cauvery. But despite the massive land mass under his control, things became too unwieldy to control from Delhi and a lot of local satraps were a law unto themselves.
I always tell my colleagues, "Never, ever fail to try
Over time things, started unravelling. Many iconic
because you think this is not a solution or it is beyond
corporations have bit the dust—from Polaroid and Kodak to
you." That moment which started off as perhaps the
more recently Enron, Lehman Brothers and in our own
most adverse circumstance, ended up being my first
country, there was the time when the Dalmia group was big
win, so to speak like Malik Ambar's first win. It was my
and more recently, the Jaypee Group, the Anil Ambani Group
first bridgehead to learn how to transform myself from
and Bhushan Steel. There are several stories of large
being a civil servant into an entrepreneur.
companies going down the tube.
What Malik Ambar story shows is that human spirit BUSINESS MANDATE
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Governance is also a very vital issue and I don't
Governance is also a very vital
hope to see any company survive with poor governance
issue and I don't hope to see
practices for long. Not having the right values in the
any company survive with poor
company and a leader who does not believe in and act
governance practices for long.
based on those values can take the company to a
Not having the right values in
failure.
the company and a leader who
SLN: How does Indian Terrain, the underdog compete with the giants in the market?
does not believe in and act based on those values can take
Venky: The most visible brand of Indian history is Chhatrapati Shivaji. His story resonated with me,
the company to a failure.
especially the manner in which he took the big bullies on. He wanted Swaraj and he is a shining example of ~ Seshasayee
what it means to be a leader. I wanted my brand to be Indian national in character. People wondered what our USP was. Getting retail space was a challenge. Salience
Seshasayee: While success is somewhat boringly
was very important.
uniform, failures are startlingly different. Each has a
Times of India started trading advertising space for
different cause. If your business is out of context, not
company equity and I jumped at their proposal, much
moving in the same direction as that of the customers,
against many people's advice. It was the best thing I
what you have built will collapse and that is one big
did and Times gave me great visibility for two years in
reason why businesses fail. You have to constantly be
all their publications. The blitz we created in those two
ahead of your time and align with market changes,
years helped establish Indian Terrain, in a small
technology changes, etc.
manner, though. We were able to make a marker!
Unwieldy companies can become dysfunctional.
All our competitors are western inspired. Though
When I joined Ashok Leland, the British Leyland was
we had our name as Indian Terrain, our stores and
unwieldy and faced lots of labour problems. They had
models were all western. In 2004 or 2005, when I went
143 companies then. Every year, they had to do wage
to a fair in Italy, I was introduced to the iconic Italian
settlements with the Unions for about 70 companies.
brand owner Mr Brunello Cucinelli who runs a billion
It became a mess and they brought a South African CEO
dollar garment business.
to head it.
He made me realise that Indian Terrain must be
He had a single objective of making British Leyland
Indian in character to connect with Indian customers.
the
From then on, we are proud of being a Chennai
government and attracting capital from the competitive
company and connecting with Indian ethos. That was
market. Prior to that, the vision statement ran into a
a single biggest differentiator for us that made us
few pages. He wrote a book, 'Back from the Brink.'
survive and made our customers like us.
completely
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of
support
from
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