Learn and Lead: February 2013

Another great session I attended at NASSCOM ILF 2013 was by Devdutt Patnaik. Dr. Devdutt Pattanaik is an Indian physician turned leadership consultant, mythologist and author whose works focus largely on the areas of myth, mythology, and also management. He has written a number of books related to Hindu mythology. He is the chief belief officer of Future Group, one of India’s largest retailers, bringing the wisdom of Indian mythology into Indian business, especially in human resource management. He writes a column for the newspaper MiD DAY. There are many videos of him on Youtube that you can view.

While I missed the initial part of his session, here are the notes from that parts I attended.

Storytelling can create the culture you like.
We are all seeking meaning. Nature will not give you meaning. To nature we are all the same. We are all animals. To nature, man is no different from cockroach.
Purpose of storytelling is to give us meaning.
As leaders, we should tell stories. Stories make us believe.
Advertising tells a story.
If you empathize, you will be better story teller.
Stories:

Give me Hope
Give me Security
Give me Identity
Be Sensitive to my fears
Don’t invalidate my imagination
Make me the Hero, not you or the product

Human beings are frightened. Leaders should help people get out of fear.
Tell honest stories. Show vulnerability but not weakness.
Listen to your customers’ needs before telling your story.

It was great listening to industry leaders in this year's NASSCOM India Leadership Forum. One of the sessions I enjoyed was listening to Vineet Nayar and R Gopalakrishnan. While the session was titled Cross Border Leadership, the discussion was not limited to that.

Vineet Nayar is Vice Chairman and Joint Managing Director of HCL Technologies Ltd., a $4.3 billion global information technology services company and author of the highly acclaimed management book “Employees First, Customers Second".

R Gopalakrishnan is an Executive Director with one of the largest Indian business groups - Tata Sons, a holding company to one of the largest Indian business groups The Tata Group.

The session was lively and racy. My notes from the session:

I learned that there is thing like Upmarket FDI. That's when India invests in developed countries.
While companies are going global, nations are becoming more border conscious.
An interesting reflection about entrepreneurs. An entrepreneur have to deal with ambiguity. If they cannot, they would be bureaucrats.
We should not be too critical about India. All countries have challenges. Nothing unique about India.
In the context of effect of cultures in managing cross border organizations, one point of view was that footballers don't think of cultural differences while playing in a club game. Why should we worry about cultures when running a business? Focus on business goals and strategies to achieve them.
Indians are the only managers who think in English but act in Indian. We are very self aware and can adapt easily.
The younger generation doesn't think about cultural differences much. This is the connected generation using social media.
Unions are becoming obsolete to protect rights of workers. Social media is a lot more powerful to protect the interests of the workforce. Reputations can be destroyed in seconds on social media.
Cash is plenty and human capital scarce. HR is going to be central to business. Finest leaders will be the ones who are people motivators.
Corporations should act out of their own will rather than being mandated, e.g. CSR mandate by govt.
Why do people work for you? Why do people go to temple or mosque on Sunday, spend money and feel happy. And yet they feel troubled coming to office on Monday and get paid for it. How can leaders build vision for something larger?
Make managements appraisal done by employees and make results public.
We are moving into an age of conscience in business.