august 2013
New-age hiring rituals
Page 48
GAME CHANGER
The Magazine for Growing Companies
The Way I Work
Nandita Lakshmanan Why a healthy workplace is better than a “cool� one Page 50
Game Changer The magazine for growing companies
How vulnerability, humility and discipline helped Anasuya Gupta transform the CICO Group Page 34
Between Venus and Mars
7 Traits of True Leaders
august 2013 | `150 | Volume 04 | Issue 07 A 9.9 Media Publication | inc.com Facebook.com/Inc
Page 24
@inc
contents
August 2013
50 The Way I Work 24 Between Venus and Mars Business is changing. Employees are changing. Now, more than ever, it takes a tender person to lead a tough company.
No headquarters. No designations. No hierarchy. That’s the way Nandita Lakshmanan likes her PR firm The Practice to be—a healthy workplace instead of an overtly “cool” one.
40 Made in India
N.R. Jagdale’s Amrut Distilleries makes a premium single malt whiskey in Bangalore. It has been ranked the third best in the world. Deal with it, Scotland.
as told to ira swasti
by ira swasti
by leigh buchanan
34 The Many Hues of Leadership
Anasuya Gupta, a trained teacher and homemaker, had no experience of running a chemicals construction business. Until the March of 2008, when her husband’s untimely death forced her to lead the change—double the company’s sales and buy it back from investors. photograph by subhojit paul
by shreyasi singh
This edition of Inc. magazine is published under licence from Mansueto Ventures LLC, New York, New York. Editorial items appearing on pages 6, 16, 18, 20, 21 and 24-33 were all originally published in the United States edition of Inc. magazine and are the copyright property of Mansueto Ventures, LLC, which reserves all rights. Copyright © 2009 and 2010 Mansueto Ventures, LLC. The following are trademarks of Mansueto Ventures, LLC: Inc., Inc. 500.
2 | INC. |
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on the cover
Anasuya Gupta, CMD, CICO Group. Photograph by Subhojit Paul. Cover design by Shokeen Saifi. Photo imaging by Peterson PJ.
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contents
August 2013
15
45 10
18
08 Editor’s Letter
10 Behind the Scenes Ready to get the ball rolling? A look at the companies that scored strikes with their wall graphics, vibrant lights and candy-coloured interiors at this bowling alley.
15 Launch
Older employees better at work-life balance, concludes a new study What brain science says about good bosses Can you guess which of these CEOs piled up the biggest profits—just by looking at their faces?
4 | INC. |
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Research shows great leaders have an unusual knack to crack you up A skimmer’s guide to The End of Power by Moisés Naím
21 Get Real
By Jason Fried Few entrepreneurs like to delegate. But give it a try—you may be surprised at what you learn.
22 lnnovation
A pheromone-based fly trap that is a sustainable alternative to pesticides
Strategy 45 Managing Decoding The Sexual Harassment Bill to help you build a safe, inclusive and respectful workplace 48 People Hiring time again? Go beyond plain vanilla techniques and scoop out the best candidate for your company with these targeted tests.
56 Founder’s Forum
Ashwajit Singh, founder, IPE Global loves adventure. It’s why he will give an arm and a leg to do business with Tintin.
inc.com
Contents
Top Videos on Inc.com
Inc.com/leadership
Four Ways to Be a Better Networker
The right connections can be the difference between boom and bust. Entrepreneur Josh Hartwell offers some tips for expanding your network— and your company’s potential.
Inc.com/Inc-live
Johnny Earle Founder of Johnny Cupcakes, on social-media strategy
“ Do anything too often on Twitter and it stops being cool and interesting.”
Inc.com/Inc-live
Les McKeown CEO of Predictable Success, on dealing with complexity
At work, meet people in other departments and ask about their jobs. Introduce yourself to strangers at industry events, workshops, and luncheons.
6 | INC. |
august 2013
2. Remember—every relationship matters
That includes customers, employees, and the people who are trying to sell to you. You never know who will become a key decision maker at another company.
3. Develop a thick skin
Not everyone you contact is going to respond. Don’t take that personally. Let rejection remind you to be more responsive to the people who reach out to you.
4. Be persistent
If you don’t follow up after your first contact attempt goes unanswered, you’re not being persistent enough. Never assume that one message is enough.
Leadership: photos.com; iSTOCK
1. Expand your comfort zone
“Growing businesses need to put in systems and processes. That’s the only way you can get to a point where you can scale.”
editor’s letter
MANAGING DIRECTOR: Dr Pramath Raj Sinha Printer & Publisher: Anuradha Das Mathur Editorial managing Editor: shreyasi singh assistant editor: Sonal Khetarpal feature writer: ira swasti DEsign Sr. Creative Director: Jayan K Narayanan Sr. Art Director: Anil VK Associate Art Directors: Atul Deshmukh & Anil T Sr. Visualisers: Manav Sachdev & Shokeen Saifi Visualiser: NV Baiju Sr. Designers: Raj Kishore Verma Shigil Narayanan & Haridas Balan Designers: Charu Dwivedi, Peterson PJ & PRADEEP g nair
More, of everything! We stay away from forcing themes at Inc. India. But, this issue somehow
just conspired to make a statement. Both our special features—the cover story on Anasuya Gupta of CICO Group, and Leigh Buchanan’s piece from our parent edition, Between Venus and Mars—are centred on transformational leadership. Actually, make that, transformational leadership emerging from qualities conventionally considered “feminine”. That I found myself in Istanbul—at the peak of the protests in Taksim Square, no less—to cover the Dell Women’s Entrepreneur Network (an annual women founders’ conference), and met a fascinating group of business builders, including Anasuya Gupta, only added to this issue’s editorial slant. Corporate hallways ring with lazy clichés about women bosses. So, before I wrote this, I conducted an informal poll among friends and colleagues on the premise of our special features—is leadership gendered? Is there a male and female way of leading? And, when it comes to entrepreneurs, how does gender impact office culture and business results? The responses surprised me. Everybody I spoke to talked about their women bosses as certainly being more demanding and highmaintenance, but also more understanding, nurturing, detail-oriented, and much more capable of thinking strategically and connecting the dots. It struck me how each of these qualities could so easily be used to describe Gupta who has doubled turnover in five years at her family’s 80-year-old construction chemicals business. Since taking over after her husband’s death, she has also made CICO more professional and efficient. Her intrinsic strengths and instincts have scripted an impressive case study of change and leadership. Don’t miss her journey.
Shreyasi Singh shreyasi.singh@9dot9.in
8 | INC. | august 2013
MARCOM Designer: Rahul Babu STUDIO Chief Photographer: Subhojit Paul Sr. Photographer: Jiten Gandhi community team assistant product manager: Rajat gupta Sales & Marketing senior vice president: krishna kumar (+91 98102 06034) business development Manager: arjun sawhney (+91 95822 20507) Senior Manager (South): Anshu Kumar (+91 95914 55661) Senior Manager (West): Deepak Patel (+91 98207 33448) assistant regional manager (south & WEST): rajesh kandari (+91 98111 40424) Production & Logistics Sr. General manager (Operations): Shivshankar M Hiremath Manager Operations: Rakesh upadhyay Assistant Manager (Logistics): Vijay Menon Executive Logistics: Nilesh Shiravadekar Production Executive: Vilas Mhatre Logistics MP Singh, Mohd. Ansari OFFICE ADDRESS nine dot nine mediaworx Pvt Ltd A-262, Defence Colony, New Delhi–110 024 For any queries, please contact us at help@9dot9.in Published, Printed and Owned by Nine Dot Nine Mediaworx Private Limited. Published and printed on their behalf by Anuradha Das Mathur. Published at A-262, Defence Colony, New Delhi–110 024. printed at Tara Art Printers Pvt ltd. A-46-47, Sector-5, NOIDA (U.P.) 201301 Editor: Anuradha Das Mathur
BEHIND THE SCENES
Companies at the Heart of Everyday Life
Graphics The cartoons, lane numberings and graffiti on the walls of this bowling alley are conceived by Happily Unmarried. The company also christened the alley Every Other Day to let people know it has a familiar, informal feel. Started by Rajat Tuli and Rahul Anand in 2003, the firm has a range of quirky, desi merchandise that includes apparel, stationery and accessories for bars, kitchens and homes. This 43-employee firm also provides design and marketing services but strictly to projects that let them be unusually creative. Its passport covers and ice trays have been used as corporate gifts by bigwigs such as Google and Bacardi.
Interior design The energetic and vibrant space using sustainable natural materials such as sleeper wood for columns, transparent shears as fabric and colourful lights was conceptualised by Vivek Varma Architects. Founded by Vivek Varma in 1992, this company specialises in interior design and architecture for retail and entertainment spaces. This design-centric firm has 10 employees, and boasts of having designed more than 200 multiplexes in India. They have done corporate interiors for Times of India, UTV and Bloomberg.
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Every Other Day, Noida
28.06.13, 5:00 P.M.
Lighting The bluish tinge from UV lights in the bowling arena and the yellow lights in the lounge are supplied by Gurgaon-based lighting specialists, Reiz Electrocontrols. Started by Atul Agarwal in 1988, the company manufactures all kinds of LED lights—indoor, outdoor, underwater and dimmable. This 450-employee firm is the OEM supplier for luminaire giants such as Bajaj and Osram. With hospitality and retail industry as its core focus, the `105-crore company has also provided lighting solutions to DLF Cybercity and the Hyderabad International Airport.
Bowling equipment The synthetic bowling lanes, pinsetters and assorted machinery to corral and return these coloured bowling balls are from Mumbai-based Complete Sports And Management India (CSML). They also provided the technical expertise to the staff to help operate this bowling alley. Its founder Rohit Mathur claims it is the only company to provide full line bowling alley installations in India. This 11-year old firm supplies video games and sports goods, imported from US, Europe or China, to various shopping malls and amusement centres. With over 110 employees, they have provided gaming equipment to 20 locations of Fun City, and have set up bowling alleys at Infosys and video games at Cisco.
photograph By subhojit paul
reported bY sonal khetarpal
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News, Ideas & Trends in Brief
launch
Happy at work = happy at home Older employees better at work-life balance than Gen X & Y According to Regus, the Luxembourg-
based provider of flexible workplaces, Indian corporate employees report a better work-life balance than most other countries that participated in its WorkLife Balance study this year. India scores 138 on the Regus Work-Life Balance Index 2013 as compared to the global average of 120. The index is measured on factors such as time spent at work and in leisure, the feeling of achievement at work (compared to last year) and management of stress. This Work-Life Balance study published for the second year is based on the views of 26,000 professionals in more than 90 countries including US, UK, Australia, Canada, Brazil and China. However, despite India’s strong global ranking, its place in the Index has slipped ILLUSTRATION BY Shigil Narayanan
slightly from last year, reflecting the pressure of work in a tough economy. According to the survey, professionals from Mexico are the happiest at work. Interestingly, this relationship between work and leisure differs with generations in India, only getting better with age. For instance, the Baby Boomer generation (born 1945-1964) appears to be more adept at juggling work and home. This generation’s Work-life Balance Index score comes in at a high-flying 144, against the India average of 138. About 78 per cent of them reported to be happy with the amount of time they spent at home. In comparison, only 65 per cent of Generation X (born 1965-80) and Generation Y respondents (born after 1980) reported to be happy about their time at home.
As a Regus spokesperson pointed out, professionals who are happy at work are both more productive and less likely to leave the company. So adopting flexible workplace policies that help employees maintain a better work-life balance may become crucial as the job market improves with time. But it isn’t all gloomy for the younger generation. Though they appear to be less adept at juggling work and home life, their sense of achievement at work is better than Baby Boomers. The report suggested that generations X and Y feel that they are achieving more at work compared with their counterparts. To add to it, 88 per cent of business owners enjoyed work more than they did last year. And, respondents from small firms scored quite high at 143. august 2013 | INC. | 15
launch
rESEARCH
The “aha” spot: At moments of insight, the brain experiences 40Hz oscillations (gamma waves) over the right anterior temporal lobe and just above the right ear. What does a transformational leader’s brain look like? Inspiring leaders use less metabolic energy in the right temporal lobe and cingulate gyrus, which are associated with creativity and speech, among other functions. This may give them more resources to allocate to specific tasks.
Do great leaders have distinctive brains?
Is leadership hormonal? Individuals high in testosterone and low in cortisol are more likely to be seen as dominant and confident. Low testosterone and cortisol levels are linked with nervousness and hesitancy. [Sources: Northwestern University study; Applied Neuroscience Research Institute; Rotterdam School of Management study]
Leading by Numbers Genetics, cultural perspectives, and the rise of female entrepreneurs
The Brain of the Boss Can neurological rewiring boost leadership skills? Yes, says David A. Waldman, a management professor at Arizona State University. Since 2005, Waldman and his colleagues have been studying the neurological patterns of successful entrepreneurs and senior managers in an attempt to learn what they have in common. The test they administer is fairly simple. Nineteen electrodes are placed on each participant’s scalp. Participants are then asked a few questions, mostly about their vision for their companies. Their brain activity is also monitored when they are at rest. With help from a neuroscientist and a qEEG machine, Waldman maps out the brain’s electrical activity in both speaking and resting states. It turns out that the brains of effective
70
Per cent of leadership ability is determined by environmental factors, according to a study of fraternal and identical twins. The rest is genetic. [Source: The Leadership Quarterly, 2006]
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leaders exhibit similar electrical patterns. Subjects rated “inspirational” by their employees generate high levels of coherence in the right frontal part of the brain, which is responsible for interpersonal communication and social relationships. It may even be possible to teach this part of your brain to operate more effectively. Waldman says neurofeedback training—essentially a rewiring of the brain— can hone your leadership chops. He and his colleagues are developing neurofeedback protocols for leadership development. Waldman suggests that neurofeedbackbased leadership training might have commercial potential. “We’re going right for the jugular when it comes to effective leadership,” he says. “And to my knowledge, we’re the only ones doing it.” —Eric Markowitz
No. 5! The United States ranked fifth in a recent list of countries with the greatest number of potential leaders relative to its work force, trailing Hong Kong, Germany, the UK, and Australia. [Source: SHL Global Leadership study]
photos.com
What brain science says about leadership
launch
Can you guess which of these CEOs piled up the biggest profits—just by looking at their faces? Chances are, you can. (The answers are below.) C
D
E
F
G
H
I
J
K
L
PERCEPTION
Faces of Success Think you can’t judge leaders by their appearance? How much can you learn about a leader by simply looking at him or her? More than you might think, according to Nicholas Rule, a psychology professor at the University of Toronto who studies the accuracy of facial perception. In 2008, Rule and co-author Nalini Ambady published a seminal paper called “The Face of Success: Inferences From Chief
85
Per cent of female business owners believe that more women will launch companies in 2013 than in past years.
[Source: National Association of Women Business Owners survey]
18
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INC. august 2013 |
Executive Officers’ Appearance Predict Company Profits.” They presented undergraduates with unidentified headshots of CEOs from the top and bottom 25 companies on the 2006 Fortune 500, which ranks the 500 largest US corporations by revenue. Subjects were asked to rank the faces on a series of subjective qualities, such as competence and likability. Overwhelmingly, the leaders who scored
voice of power Both men and women tend to associate deep voices with leadership ability, according to a recent study that asked respondents to rate the ability of male and female candidates for hypothetical leadership positions. [Source: Plos One, 2012]
most to least profitable in 2006: J. david j. o’reilly (Chevron), G. james mulva (ConocoPhillips), C. H. Lee scott jr. (Walmart), H. william clay ford jr. (Ford), K. meg whitman (ebay), E. mark a. ernst (Fiserv), B. william Wrigley Jr. (Wrigley), D. stephen F. Bollenbach (Hilton Hotels), L. william V. hickey (sealed air), F. timothy M. mAnganello (Borgwarner), A. Cristobal CONDE (SunGard), I. Rick Wagoner (GM)
highest by these measures turned out to run the most profitable companies. In 2011, Rule carried out a similar study using college yearbook pictures of the top US lawyers. Complete strangers were able to predict which lawyers ended up in charge of the country’s most profitable law firms. He then repeated the study with 20 female CEOs on the Fortune 1000. Once again, Rule found a direct correlation between leadership ratings and corporate profits. Ultimately, it comes down to the familiar tension between nature and nurture. “Dominance is something we’re really good at picking up,” says Rule. “It’s difficult to find the causality, but it might be that their face causes them to become that person.” None of this means that having a dominating appearance will make you a smarter or a more successful entrepreneur. It also doesn’t prove that CEOs of more profitable companies are naturally better leaders. However, it might help explain why they got their jobs in the first place. —E.M.
$13.6
Billion Amount US companies spend on leadership development each year. Sixty-two per cent of businesses say their employees lack crucial leadership skills. [Sources: Deloitte; Training Industry]
photos Courtesy subject
B
A
Before you sign … STOP AND THINK!
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launch
Weaker at the Top
Leadership is shakier than it used to be
Why’s that? Strong, centralised leadership made sense for the hierarchical bureaucracies of the Industrial Age. In today’s world, smaller and more nimble players can often outflank big institutions and their seemingly all-powerful leaders. Takeaway for entrepreneurs: You picked the right career. Now go forth and perpetrate some disruptive innovation. —Richard
McGill Murphy
“A sense of humour is part of the art of leadership, of getting along with people, of getting things done.” —Dwight D. Eisenhower
2 0 | INC. |
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Cracking Wise Great leaders tend to be funny in a particular way, new research shows Most people wouldn’t associate the
famously self-deprecating director of Annie Hall with inspirational leadership. But may be they should. Researchers at Seattle University recently presented undergraduates with a series of vignettes in which a company boss introduced a new project manager, Pat, to the team. All the vignettes were structured similarly until it came to the —Woody Allen punch line. The first story ended with the boss saying, “I am so glad that Pat took this job, despite knowing all about us!” The second ended with, “I am so glad that Pat took this job, despite knowing all about you!” The third ended, “I am so glad that Pat took this job, despite knowing all about me!” Almost categorically, undergraduates rated the boss in the third story—the self-
deprecating boss—as a more likable, trustworthy, and caring leader. The three anecdotes correspond to three different humour styles: group-deprecating, aggressive, and self-deprecating. Project managers who used self-deprecating humour tested highest for transformational leadership, defined by motivational qualities such as likability, trust, individualised consideration, and intellectual stimulation. Self-deprecating humour enhances perceptions of leadership ability because it tends to minimise status distinctions between leaders and followers. “Everyone makes mistakes,” says study co-author Colette Hoption, a management professor at Seattle University. “Admitting them frankly can help you build solid relationships with your team.”—E.M.
“They did not take me in the Army. In the event of war, I’m a hostage.”
photos.com
The premise: Whether you’re a prime minister, a general, or a CEO, you probably face more competition and have less job security than did your predecessors, argues global-affairs pundit Moisés Naím in The End of Power.
Get Real
BY
Jason Fried
Jason Fried is co-founder of 37signals, a Chicago-based software company. He is a man, not a machine.
Letting Go Few entrepreneurs like to delegate. But give it a try—you may be surprised at what you learn A few weeks ago, I did something that once would have been unimaginable: I handed over day-to-day control of 37signals’s most popular product, Basecamp. A different Jason, Jason Zimdars, is steering that ship now. Understand, Basecamp is not just any product. It’s our signature offering. We launched it nine years ago, and it boasts tens of thousands of paying customers and millions of users across scores of industries around the world. It’s critical to our success—and because many customers use the software to run their businesses, it’s critical to their success, too. For years, I felt I was the only one who could manage Basecamp. But I recently spent some time reflecting on my day-to-day responsibilities. Every day, I make dozens of decisions, some big, some small, about 37signals—about our culture, employees, customers, current products, future offerings, and more. As a result, very few things get my undivided attention anymore. And that’s become a problem. To put it another way: For me to hold on to Basecamp is no longer in the best interests of the company. In fact, our continued growth depends on me becoming a different kind of leader—one who is able to see when other people can do a better job than I can. It also occurred to me that the only reason I was running Basecamp was that I had always run Basecamp. And that’s no reason to do anything. From the outside, this may seem obvious. But letting go is one of the hardest decisions a business owner ever makes. It’s especially challenging when you’ve been doing things your way for years. Given all that, you might ask why I didn’t start with some baby steps and hand off something less important than Basecamp. I guess it’s because baby steps are baby steps. They’re not going to take you very far. It was time to take a big leap. illustration by RAJ VERMA
Basecamp is at the top of its game right now. Last year, we redesigned it from the ground up, and our customers have been delighted with the results. But there’s a flip side to that success: the risk of complacency. When something is working well, it becomes too easy to let things run themselves. Fix a few things here, improve a few things there, launch a new feature every so often. That’s coasting. And I don’t want Basecamp to coast. I want someone thinking about Basecamp, and only Basecamp, 24 hours a day. And I finally came to understand that given all that is on my plate, that person no longer can be me. I was lucky. Because if deciding to delegate was difficult, deciding whom to delegate to was a cinch. Jason Zimdars has been a designer here for years. And lately, he’s really stepped up, singlehandedly taking over projects without waiting to be asked. He’s proved, without being asked to prove, that he is capable of making smart decisions and producing on-time, quality work. When I asked Jason how he felt about taking over Basecamp, he asked if he could take the weekend to think it over. On Monday morning, he came to me and said, “Hell, yeah!” I’ll still be involved, of course. Everyone at 37signals contributes to what we do and how we do it. But in the end, it’ll be Jason who will make the final call. As for me, I’ll finally have time to devote my attention to new ideas. There’s an important lesson here: By offering Jason a chance to develop his talents, I am also giving myself a chance to grow. And that’s the best kind of win-win. Follow Jason Fried on Twitter: @jasonfried. august 2013 | INC. | 2 1
innovation
Companies on the Cutting Edge
Trapped!
Working at a Malaysian pharma firm in India had taught Lokesh Makam a lot about sustainable technologies in agro sciences. This realisation prompted him to focus on developing a pest control method for farmers which did not involve the heavy use of pesticides. Within a year, he came up with Barrix Catch Fruit Fly Trap and Lure, a fly trap that uses pheromones—chemicals naturally secreted by flies to attract mates—as a bait. And, formed Barrix Agro Sciences in February 2011 with an ex-colleague and scientist, Mayil Vaganan. This trap works best when there are four deployed in each acre of land under yield and each trap can last three to four seasons. Makam claims it helps farmers increase their yield by almost 20 per cent and saves them up to `10,000 per acre in pesticides. The trap also received a patent last year for its container design and wood impregnation technology that ensures the sustained release of pheromones. Business has been buzzing since then. The company has sold 60,000 traps in 16 districts of Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu. Barrrix has also managed to lure investments from agtech venture capital firm Omnivore Partners and the Centre for Innovation, Incubation and Entrepreneurship. Price: `160 Awards received Winner, Most Innovative Enterprise, Villgro Award 2013 Winner, Best Social Enterprise, Sankalp Award 2013 National Rural Innovation Award by NABARD 2012
Advantages Reduces the cost of cultivation Ensures pesticidefree crops No contamination of environment No side effects on humans
“We want to help protect crops, improve yield and increase profitability for farmers.” —Lokesh Makam, co-founder, Barrix Agro Sciences
2 2 | INC. |
august 2013
Barrix Catch Fruit Fly Trap and Lure
photograph by Subhojit paul
Barrix Agro Sciences
reported by Sonal Khetarpal
BETWEEN
VENUS AND mARS
Empathy. Vulnerability. Humility. Inclusiveness. Generosity. Balance. Patience. The most effective leaders right now—men and women—are those who embrace traits once considered feminine BY Leigh Buchanan
Illustrations by jimmy turrell
hat a perfect day to meet up with John Gerzema for a conversation about leadership styles. I have come to the Manhattan offices of Young & Rubicam to discuss Gerzema’s new book, The Athena Doctrine, which argues that traits classically considered feminine are essential to effective leadership today. By coincidence, the two weeks since I scheduled the appointment have kicked up a dust storm of news about female leaders behaving “like men” and male leaders behaving “like women.” Sheryl Sandberg of Facebook exhorted women to power up the career ladder with the same obduracy as men. Marissa Mayer weighed empathy against a full parking lot at Yahoo and chose the latter. Andrew Mason reaped kudos for the candour, humility, and vulnerability expressed in his resignation let2 4 | INC. |
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ter from Groupon. He even made a joke about his weight. You’ve seen the studies about companies with gender-diverse boards outperforming male bastions, and about women hedge-fund managers trouncing their male counterparts. In 2011, the leadership development firm Zenger Folkman surveyed more than 7,200 business people about leaders in their organisations. Women were rated as better soverall leaders than their male counterparts. The more exalted the position, the wider the gap. So, sure, more women leaders would be great. But this is not a story about women leaders. It’s a story about good leaders. And our understanding of what good leaders do is being shaped by a number of new studies, the most intriguing of which comes from Gerzema, Young & Rubicam’s chief insights officer and executive chairman of Y&R’s BAV Consulting division. A few years ago, Gerzema and his collaborator, Michael D’Antonio, wrote a book called Spend Shift, which described a postcrisis economy fueled by values rather than greed. As Gerzema made the public-speaking rounds, his audiences pointed out that the entrepreneurs, business leaders, and others profiled in the book evinced traits commonly considered feminine. Gerzema manages the world’s largest database of consumers, and so is uniquely positioned to kick theoretical tires. Intrigued by the observations about gender, he surveyed 64,000 people in 13 countries on how they felt about government, the economy, and the (mostly male) leaders pulling the levers. Substantial majorities waxed critical of institutions and pessimistic about their quality of life. Twothirds said the world would be a better place if men thought more like women. Gerzema also asked consumers to characterise 125 traits as male, female, or neutral and to indicate those most desirable in modern leaders. Topping the list of most desirable traits were patience, expressiveness, intuition, flexibility, empathy, and many other traits identified by respondents as feminine. 2 6 | INC. |
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The Holy Grail in business today is engagement: employees’ energy, enthusiasm, and commitment to their companies. Engagement has a powerful effect not only on productivity but also on profitability and customer metrics, numerous studies show. But it’s not something you can buy. The most recent Towers Watson Global Workforce Study identifies as key to engagement an employer who “promotes physical, emotional, and social well-being.” At a time when CEOs are demanding more from diminished, anxious work forces, they must make employees feel part
what a leader needs now
— Labelling traits as masculine or feminine reflects popular perception rather than evidence-based fact. But it’s a handy way to think about what works in organisations today. The following qualities, traditionally identified with women, produce results for leaders of both genders. — Empathy Being sensitive to the thoughts and feelings of others — Vulnerability Owning up to one’s limitations and asking for help — Humility Seeking to serve others and to share credit — Inclusiveness Soliciting and listening to many voices — Generosity Being liberal with time, contacts, advice, and support — Balance Giving life, as well as work, its due — Patience Taking a long-term view
of something and demonstrate their personal concern and support. “Whether you’re talking about corporate America or Silicon Valley, it’s still a man’s world with masculine structures and women conforming to those ideals,” says Gerzema. “Feminine traits and values are a new form of innovation. They are an untapped form of competitive advantage.” We have progressed from commandand-control (roughly through the 1980s) to empower-and-track (the 1990s to mid2000s) to connect-and-nurture (today). Increasingly, the chief executive role is taking its place among the caring professions. It takes a tender person to lead a tough company.
Why we need to soften up
Let’s be clear: No one wants to slip the Y-chromosome off leadership’s genetic string. A University of Chicago study of CEOs in private-equity-funded companies found those who scored high on skills such as speed and persistence were more successful than those who scored high on team skills and were open to criticism. (The professor conducting that study labelled the two CEO types cheetahs and lambs.) Gerzema’s respondents ranked among the most desirable leadership traits decisiveness, resilience, and confidence, which they identified as masculine. And 81 per cent said leaders require a combination of male and female traits. The ideal leader, then, should be like the earth itself: positioned between Mars and Venus. But in an environment of uncertainty and shifting power structures, Venus is rising. In the past 15 years or so, three factors have emerged to make a softer leadership style more attractive. Those factors are interdependence, cynicism, and the quest for sustainability. We’ll start with interdependence. Some business leaders see competition as a sprint and some as a marathon. But for virtually all, it has become a three-legged race that is impossible to win alone. Companies co-create with customers and vendors; they enlist their entire supply
ON EMPATHY Neil Blumenthal of Warby Parker
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“I want our managers to care deeply about the people who work for them.”
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t’s so important to see things from the other person’s perspective. When I was at my nonprofit, VisionSpring, I would be in a village in rural Bangladesh, with a community of weavers. I knew they had vision problems, but not one was wearing glasses. I would say, “Raise your hand if you have trouble seeing.” No one would raise their hand. So I said, “Raise your hand if you have trouble threading a needle.” And everybody would raise their hand. You have to know the right question. I’m starting a workshop for first-time managers. I’m going to lead it myself, with my co-founder, Dave Gilboa, because developing people is our most important job. I want our managers to care deeply about the people who work for them, to know a lot about each person individually and what motivates them. When Lyndon Johnson was leader of the Senate, people used to say that he could meet somebody and immediately size the person up and frame how he would lead based on what motivated him or her. I want our managers to do that. When you have an inexperienced team, people may not know what they want to do. It’s part of the manager’s role to help people discover what makes them happy and they are great at.
Neil Blumenthal is co-founder and co-CEO of the upstart eyeglasses seller Warby Parker, which is based in New York City.
chains—sometimes even competitors—in risk management; they assume employees, consumers, and government agencies will call them out on their practices. CEOs still bear ultimate responsibility for difficult decisions. But it’s less lonely at the top with so many constituencies staking claims to be heard and respected. Under those circumstances, collaboration and flexibility are essential. And testosterone is not collaboration’s friend. That was shown by a University College London study in which women given testosterone supplements were much more likely to behave egocentrically and insist on doing things their way during cooperative exercises. Cynicism is the natural consequence of watching a long line of corporate dominoes topple over more than a decade as executives ignored risk to maximise prof-
ON INCLUSIveness Eileen Fisher of eileen fisher inc. —
“When you’re part of figuring something out, you have much more invested in it.”
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or most meetings, we sit on chairs in a circle. People feel like they are co-creating when they’re in a circle together. They can see where the energy is. They’re not being dictated to. When you’re part of figuring something out, you have much more invested in it. Listening is a really important part of the circle. In a lot of environments, people talk over each other. Making space for different kinds of people, different voices, different ideas, is really important for the success of the business. A woman in one of our stores came up with the idea of a talking stick and how some Native American tribes used it to solve problems. They passed it around until everyone had a chance to contribute. Our talking sticks can be anything: an apple or an orange or a cookie. Just knowing you are going to have a turn—sometimes it’s hard when people are bantering or talking fast. We recently created a circle just of younger people to brainstorm ideas. They were so grateful to be heard and had so many wonderful ideas. We are on a path to implement some of them already. It’s very personal for me because it was hard for me to learn to speak. I’m still working on it. At conferences, I sometimes want to say, “Can we have the talking stick so I can get my word in edgewise?” Eileen Fisher is founder of the Irvington, New York–based fashion company that bears her name.
its. In their new book, Top Dog: The Science of Winning and Losing, Po Bronson and Ashley Merryman cite research showing not that women are risk averse but that they are better judges than men of their own abilities and less likely to play if they don’t think they will win. The exercise of caution is essential to earning trust—few of us are comfortable with our fate in the hands of someone who takes wild chances. So are openness (so people know what you are doing) and values (so they appreciate the reason you’re doing it). Finally, sustainability. At first, sustainability pertained exclusively to the preservation of natural resources and the environment. But the concept has expanded to include giving back to communities and supporting and developing employees—not just out of
concern for their quality of life but also to improve performance. Last October, the Haas School of Business at the University of California, Berkeley, released a report showing that companies with more women on their boards perform better on environmental, social, and governance issues. Gerzema puts it neatly: “Men tend to be explorers, and women are allocators.” The effect on leadership of other trends is more ambiguous. Like everyone else, leaders interact with the world through technology, and in many ways technology encourages a classic male style. It strips emotion from communication, creates an impersonal global marketplace, and allows people to work in isolation. Yet technology also makes possible co-creation, collaboration, and the outpourings of compassion and offers of support that now follow august 2013 | INC. | 2 7
Do you agree that power is about influence rather than control?
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A yes answer suggests a more feminine approach to leadership; a no answer, a more male approach. BAV Consulting posed the question to 64,000 people in 13 countries. The differences between countries, and between generations within countries, can be striking.
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catastrophe as a matter of course. As such, it both enables and amplifies the softer traits of leadership. Then, of course, there are the new generational waves washing up on corporate shores: Millennials who expect to be mentored, respected, and charged with socially meaningful work—all elements of the feminine style. But underemployment remains high among fresh graduates. Will young people still demand caring, inclusive leaders after a couple of years working the drivethrough window? An authoritarian boss may seem a reasonable tradeoff for decent pay.
age: to “let go of who they thought they should be in order to be who they were.” Such people “fully embraced vulnerability,” Brown told the TED audience. “They
Just a few years ago, failure was not an option. Today, it is considered a necessary catalyst for personal growth.
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It’s not easy to twig off Brené Brown, a celebrated standard-bearer for compassion and empathy. But three years ago, I managed to do just that. So when I called her recently to talk about new approaches to leadership, she did not sound overjoyed to hear from me. Brown is the author of the bestselling book Daring Greatly: How the Courage to Be Vulnerable Transforms the Way We Live, Love, Parent, and Lead. In December 2010, she vaulted to fame with a TED talk, which at presstime had racked up nine million views. (By coincidence, Sheryl Sandberg’s entreaty for women to aggressively pursue their careers was posted that same month. It had 2.4 million views.) As a research professor at the University of Houston’s Graduate College of Social Work, Brown interviewed more than 1,200 people on their experiences of shame, vulnerability, and “wholeheartedness,” which she defines as “living and loving with their whole hearts, despite the risk and uncertainty.” In her talk, Brown explained that people connect with others only when they themselves feel worthy of connection. Those who felt worthy, she said, displayed a particular kind of cour-
didn’t talk about vulnerability being comfortable, nor did they really talk about it being excruciating. They just talked about it being necessary.” On the basis of that talk, I had asked Brown to write a column for Inc. about the implications of her research for leaders. This was during a period when Silicon Valley machismo was at a recent peak. The movie The Social Network had recently premiered, and Steve Jobs was being idolised for having changed the game—yet again—with the iPad. I had my own opinions on the subject, the result of a decade’s worth of conversations with entrepreneurs, many of whom in their companies’ early days had pretended their businesses were larger than they were or had capabilities they did not possess. I wanted Brown to acknowledge that company founders were a special case, for whom vulnerability wasn’t always the best option. Brown disagreed with my conclusions and did not write the column. And when we spoke in April, she reminded me that I had once “schooled” her about entrepreneurs. She was gracious enough not to return the schooling now, but she had been right all along. We talked about the changing rhetoric around failure, which just a few years ago was not an option but today is august 2013 | INC. | 2 9
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considered a necessary catalyst for personal growth. Investors, Brown says, “are increasingly afraid of company founders who are not able to talk about where they have failed, how they have failed, and what they learnt from it.” We are also less willing to believe that a single person holds the right answer to increasingly complex questions. “The Oz model of leadership—all knowing, all powerful—doesn’t play anymore,” says Brown. “If there were people who had all the answers, we wouldn’t be in the trouble we are in today.” In times of flux and peril, she says, we require leaders “who stand up and say, ‘Hey, we are struggling in this area, and I don’t have all the answers. And I need your help. And here’s where I need
ideas. And here’s where I need to know what I’m doing well and what I need to do differently to support you.’ ” That kind of leader, says Brown, “is somebody people will follow into a burning building.” A related set of ideas about success comes from Adam Grant, a professor at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School. Grant is the author of an excellent book about the power of generosity: Give and Take: A Revolutionary Approach to Success. He proved his own generosity by talking to me the morning after he appeared on the cover of The New York Times Magazine, when he was under siege by people asking him for favours.
“The Oz model of leadership—all knowing, all powerful— doesn’t play anymore.” Grant has assembled volumes of research in this area and conducted many studies himself, including one that found salespeople who feel strongly about benefiting others generated 50 per cent more
THE DE-MACHOING There are no bright lines between leadership eras. Very broadly speaking, the long-dominant model of autocratic leadership became less popular in the 1980s, influenced by, among other things, a new interest in culture and the popularity of books like In Search of Excellence, which advocated centralised values and decentralised decision making. Empowerment became a watchword in the 1990s, as organisations flattened and technology put tools and information in employees’ hands. In the past decade, companies have grown more nurturing in response to a new understanding of the correlation between engagement and productivity, a greater emphasis on social responsibility, and smaller budgets with which to retain top talent. It has gone kind of like this: The Age of Autocracy
The Age of Empowerment
The Age of Nurture
— General Electric’s Jack Welch is dubbed Neutron Jack for his propensity to get rid of employees while leaving buildings intact.
— Howard Schultz’s expansion plans for Starbucks rely on store-level employees making decisions based on knowledge of their regions.
— David Neeleman dons an apron and serves snacks to JetBlue passengers.
— Oracle’s Larry Ellison models himself on samurai as he attacks competitors and pushes employees to the limit. — Michael Eisner drives up Disney’s stock price while driving employees crazy with his micromanagement.
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— Oprah Winfrey is a demanding boss—but as inspiring and caring offscreen as she is onscreen. — Meg Whitman takes over eBay, a company whose business model is all about autonomy, which requires her to trust people while insisting on integrity.
— Whole Foods’s John Mackey contributes $100,000 annually to a fund for workers with personal struggles. — Tony Hsieh enshrines honesty, humility, and weirdness among Zappos’s core values.
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on patience Amy Simmons of Amy’s ice creams
ON vulnerability Hayes DrumwrighT of Trace3
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“Growing slowly doesn’t mean you’re stagnant. There’s tons of motion going on.”
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apid growth is a sign of success in this country. How many units do you have? What are your gross sales? That’s never been what felt good to me about this organisation. I’m really conservative financially. I mean, I’ve started other businesses since Amy’s—I take risks. But I’m very calculated. Growing slowly doesn’t mean you’re stagnant. There’s tons of motion going on. A few years ago, we had a two-year battle with the shareholders whose growth plans didn’t align with ours. It wasn’t enough to say we’re 28 years old, we have no debt, your return on your investment is phenomenal, we have a lot of national presence. They see that, and they want it monetised. They want the Starbucks model. We had 22 shareholders, and now we’ve pared that down to nine, and everybody is aligned. My husband and I started a development company, and we’re creating these centers called Austinvilles. Each one is named for its Zip code. We find an architecturally interesting, human-scale building and we open an Amy’s there and rent the rest to local businesses that have synergies with us and each other. We all support each other. It lowers our risk. It promotes local entrepreneurship. And it preserves Austin’s history and character.
Amy Simmons is the co-founder and CEO of the Austin institution Amy’s Ice Creams.
revenue than their less-caring counterparts. In another study, suggestions for improvement made by generous people were more enthusiastically accepted by colleagues than those coming from others. Give and Take limns a taxonomy of generosity in which “givers” help others without expectation of return, “takers” exploit relationships for gain, and “matchers” pursue the quid pro quo. The most professionally successful are givers who also possess a strong sense of self-worth. These people—who are generous with their time, connections, and ideas—create rich networks wherein the norm is to add value to one another’s lives and work. Consequently, ambitious givers embody connectedness, which is among the femi-
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“Only strong people are comfortable talking about their failures.”
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very year, I write a playbook for employees that lays out the business plan and all my inner worries and concerns. I wrote the first one in 2006. I talked about the failure of my first company and what it did to my marriage, and about the rules I set to make sure this one would be better. I said, “Here are the things I want for you and for your families.” We were at $23 million then. I said, “In three years, we will be at $100 million, and here’s what we will do and how we will treat each other to accomplish that.” I also gave them all this data explaining in detail how I started the company. And I said, “If you don’t agree with this, then you can take it and use it as a blueprint to start a competitor. And that is OK with me.” I also give the playbooks to our partners and our clients. When I speak in public, I usually tell a story in the first 10 minutes about something I failed at. And I’ll talk about getting cancer when I was 20 and how that eliminated a lot of my fear. People connect with these things, because everyone has failed at something and been afraid and had health issues. Only strong people are comfortable talking about their failures. I don’t see a downside to it.
Hayes Drumwright is the founder and CEO of Trace3, a $300 million IT consulting company in Irvine, California.
“Our romance with gut decision making—fanned by Jack Welch and Malcolm Gladwell—feels less ardent today.” nine leadership traits admired by Gerzema’s respondents. Guy Kawasaki and Reid Hoffman are among the leaders cited by Grant who ask constantly what they can
do for others. Hoffman, for example, tries to do at least one thing a day that is not for himself. Generosity benefits leaders in several ways, Grant explains. They earn respect and prestige, which translate into loyalty from employees and trust from peers and business partners. They make better decisions because they naturally act in the best interest of others. They are able to step outside their own frames of reference to understand what their employees and customers truly want and need. And they are excellent developers of talent, because they focus not on existing stars but rather on employees who, with the right help, may grow to greatness. The ripple effect of being a giverleader can be powerful and salubrious. When leaders are generous with their time august 2013 | INC. | 3 1
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Worldwide, people want feminine traits in their leaders
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Although a general election took place in November, the US President foremost in our hearts and minds of late has been dead for 148 years. Lincoln is a man for our times. And not just because he bears a striking resemblance to Daniel Day-Lewis. Lincoln scholars have commented on the 16th President’s merging of masculine traits (strength of purpose, tenacity) with feminine ones (empathy, openness, the willingness to nurture others). That combination “was central to his practice of great leadership,” writes Frank J. Williams in the essay collection The Lincoln Forum: Rediscovering Abraham Lincoln. Lincoln’s humility and inclusiveness made possible the “team of rivals” described by Doris Kearns Goodwin in the popular book of that title. Generous and empathic, he made time for people of all stations who approached him with their troubles. Our romance with gut decision making, on the other hand—fanned by Jack Welch and Malcolm Gladwell, among others—feels less ardent today. The complexity that makes vulnerability so important has a similar effect on collaboration. Issues with multiple layers and stakeholders are tough (and dangerous) to just decide. No less a light than Nobelist Daniel Kahneman plumped for the more deliberative style in Thinking, Fast and Slow, a nice companion volume to Team of Rivals. Kahneman says decisions based on intuition tend to be tainted by overconfidence
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32,000 study subjects were asked to classify 125 traits as masculine, feminine, or neutral. Another 32,000 were asked to rate the importance of the traits to effective leadership. “Feminine” traits were more likely to be strongly linked to leadership.
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and support, that behaviour will “cascade down levels and across regions of an organisation,” Grant says. “And the frequency and amount of helping and knowledge sharing among employees is a very important driver of lots of organisational performance metrics, from profitability and productivity to retention to customer satisfaction.” Generosity, in other words, is the ultimate silo destroyer. CEOs who model it inspire that most elusive of goals: a work force in which everyone develops everyone else.
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and ignore alternative interpretations of the situation at hand. Your gut, argues Kahneman, wants to keep things simple and work with the information it has, even if that information is incomplete or not particularly relevant. A more thoughtful, inclusive form of decision making comes more naturally to women, who typically see things in less absolute terms than do men. In a University of Warwick study, both men and women were asked to state whether 50 objects fit partly, fully, or not at all into particular categories. The women were much more likely than the men to choose “partly.” (So: Tomatoes are sort of a fruit but also, arguably, not.) In the new order of collaborative leadership and team-based everything, the bias is toward soliciting more, and more diverse, perspectives. Employees, needless to say, are down with that. My favourite of the many, many best-places-to-work lists isn’t a best-places-to-work list at all. Rather it is WorldBlu’s list of the “most democratic companies,” which includes such cultural lodestars as Zappos, New Belgium Brewing, and Great Harvest Bread. Traci Fenton, who founded WorldBlu to promote freedom, accountability, and transparency in the workplace, says democratic businesses tend to be more financially successful and have greater social impact than their bureaucratic counterparts. “People want to have their voices heard,” says Fenton. “When you give them that and respect what they have to say, they are more engaged, and that makes them more productive.” A related development is a growing focus on listening, which in the pantheon of leadership skills is ascending to the same level as communication. Communication still rules. (Although Grant explains that “powerless communication,” rife with “disclaimers, hedges, and hesitations,” is often more persuasive than assertive talk. More grist for the gentle mill.) But business leaders and management experts increasingly tout the importance of learning to hear—really hear—what others say. Consider former IBM chief Sam Palmisano’s observation, reported in the McKinsey Quarterly last
year, that his time in Japan was crucial to his leadership development because it forced him to bear down on listening simply for the sake of comprehension. I can imagine debates breaking out about the primacy of communication versus listening, similar to those about the primacy of employees versus customers. No matter your opinion, listening happens first, says Bernard Ferrari, dean of the Carey Business School at Johns Hopkins University and author of the 2012 book Power Listening. “Remember the movie Patton, with George C. Scott standing on the stage with the flag behind him giving that great inspirational speech?” Ferrari asks. “People say, ‘That’s leadership!’ And I say, ‘No! No! No! What kind of listening did he have to do to inform that speech? Who did he talk to? What did he learn? What kinds of questions did he ask? That’s leadership.’ ”
(that maybe why we start companies; it’s not why we lead), one response might be “to get big fast, and in the process benefit as much as possible my employees, customers, investors, and the world.” That is an excellent answer.
In the new order of collaborative leadership and team-based everything, the bias is toward soliciting more, and more diverse, perspectives. Employees, needless to say, are down with that.
Patient Advocacy The patron saint of female leadership principles maybe Anita Roddick, the founder of the Body Shop, who died six years ago. Interviewed by Sally Helgesen for her 1995 book The Female Advantage: Women’s Ways of Leadership, Roddick defined feminine principles as “caring…not getting hung up on hierarchy…having a sense of work as being part of your life, not separate from it; putting your labour where your love is; being responsible to the world in how you use your profits; recognising the bottom line should stay at the bottom.” Implicit in Roddick’s list is not only the question, How do we lead? but also, Why do we lead? Entrepreneurs and business leaders have been asking that question for at least a quarter-century. Putting aside the “to-make-pots-of-money” explanation
An alternative response is “to build patiently and thoughtfully a business with strong roots in the community at a scale that allows me to maintain personal relationships with and directly influence the lives of employees and customers.” That, too, is an excellent answer. Gerzema characterises patience, longterm thinking, and community orientation as feminine. Ambitious growth correlates with masculine traits. Men, speculates Gerzema, are legacy oriented. Women want to nurture. But even CEOs with aggressive growth strategies can lead with feminine values. So long as founders are intent on building companies that endure, that always pay back to the people in and around them, the two approaches are equal. “It’s not about building bigger companies but about serving something bigger,” says Gerzema. “There’s so much cynicism that people are out for short-term gain. Leadership today is about taking people into a better future. That’s a long trip.”
Leigh Buchanan is an editor-at-large for Inc. august 2013 | INC. | 3 3
The Many Hues of Leadership
How Anasuya Gupta transformed CICO Group, an 80-year-old construction chemicals company against formidable challenges—little business experience, a huge personal loss and tangible scepticism from those around her. by Shreyasi Singh Photographs by Subhojit Paul | IMAGING BY PETERSON PJ
In BetweenVenus And Mars, the special feature we’ve taken from
our US edition, Inc.’s editor-at-large Leigh Buchanan spoke to a range of leadership, motivation and behavioural experts to drill down the qualities that make a good leader. Her conversations and findings lead to seven key traits—empathy, vulnerability, humility, inclusiveness, generosity, balance and patience—that are detailed in the article. Buchanan says these are qualities that were traditionally associated with women. So, the big leadership change at the modern workplace, she says, is that today’s effective leaders are those who can embrace these feminine traits.
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The Many Hues of Leadership
The article got us thinking: all things remaining the same—customers, products, employees—does a company change when the gender of its C-suite does? Especially, when there’s more Venus, for example. To answer that, we couldn’t have hoped for a better story to tell than that of Anasuya Gupta, managing director and chairperson, CICO Group, a Delhi-headquartered construction chemicals company. In March 2008, Gupta had to take over the company after her third-generation entrepreneur husband Amit Gupta passed away. Needless to say, it was an incredibly difficult time for Gupta—faced as she was with personal loss, two young children grieving their father and an established business that was jittery about its future. Yet, Gupta, essentially a homemaker till then, has done much more than just douse those fears. In the past five years, that she has led the company, it has been on a consistent upswing—both in terms of business growth and operational efficiency—thanks to the many qualities Buchanan mentions in her story about good leadership; qualities that Gupta seems to have in heaps. In fact, Gupta caught my attention precisely because she demonstrated a key qualityBuchanan mentions—vulnerability—with such ease at the Dell Women’s Entrepreneur Network in Istanbul where I happened to meet her in early June. Instead of first telling me about the huge business impact she’s had in the
past five years (including doubling the company’s turnover, and completely buying back its private equity investors’ share), she spoke candidly about how she had personally navigated the ropes of business, including coaching her male colleagues on why they couldn’t use the ladies bathroom! Hers is an interesting journey on many accounts, and a worthy case study of transformative leadership. Read on to see the changes she brought on at CICO Group, and how:
Professionalism & Discipline I believe women are detail-oriented; sometimes, to the point of micro-managing. I’m like that too. In contrast, my husband’s policy was “Let Go. Let Be.” I have a certain image of what the office should look like, and that our employees should be well presented. I once even told one of our male employee to shave. In fact, I brought it up at a town hall meeting, saying untended facial hair was not acceptable. Each employee is an ambassador of the company, and each one must look professional. My daughter is constantly mortified that I say these things but it’s important to articulate, I think. Also, when I joined the business, I made a decision to make a few people redundant because I knew they would be roadbloacks in the journey ahead, including a few people
InsiderView
“Basically, CICO was a family organisation. She realised that it needed professionalism; that although people were dedicated, they needed training. She introduced a management training programme a few months after she came in which was meant to develop skills for both senior and junior staff members. We had workshops on how to talk to clients, how to present ourselves and team building exercises. Initially, we thought it was a waste of time. But, within the first two to three months, we realised how important and beneficial it was for us.” Sukanta Mallik GM, Contracts (has been with the company since 1996) 3 6 | INC. |
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“Although she is friendly and people can talk to her, she’s also very performance-driven. For one, she has brought in a lot of technology to help the business. She uses our Sales Dashboard tool very well. Because she uses it, everybody else has to as well. Also, we are all accountable for the targets set for us. From the assistant manager to the general manager, everybody has targets. She lays out targets for herself as well. It’s made such a tremendous change.” Sukanta Mallik GM, Contracts (has been with the company since 1996)
who were very close to my husband. My husband never let go of people—ever. People just chugged along, sometimes without adding to their skills, or improving themselves. I view it differently. We have to demonstrate we are a high-potential company. So, when you condone under-performance, you’re setting the wrong culture. What’s the incentive for somebody to be an outstanding performer when even mediocre performers get the same benefits? It was important to be meritocratic and professional. We’ve tried to attract some really good talent, and bring in new people. In the past five years, we’ve also moved from Tally to ERP. We created a proper HR function. The biggest pat on my back really was when CICO won the Best Professionally Managed Organisation in our category at the 5th CIDC Vishwakarma Award 2013. I didn’t go up to the podium to receive the award though. I sent my AVP because I said if we’re getting an award for being a professionally managed company, a professional should go up to get it. This gentleman was so embarrassed. But I told
The Many Hues of Leadership
him I was applauding from the audience, and he had to go up. I wanted to send a message to the company that we are a professional organisation, and that is something we deeply value.
Collaboration & Teamwork One of the first things I noticed when I came in was that people didn’t work in teams at all. They worked in silos, and decisions were taken individually. The left hand didn’t know what the right one was doing. There would be instances where we couldn’t execute efficiently on orders because the chemical needed wasn’t available in the country. I understood what was wrong when I began asking basic questions—had the sales team spoken to the production people before taking the order, or why didn’t we get a particular business after qualifying for its tender specifications? Had anybody talked to sales to find out? More often than not, the answer would be no. I began to fix that. Today, we work in teams. For example, we have a pricing committee now unlike before where only one person would decide the price but when we went out into the market, we couldn’t sell because that price was too high. Yet, it was impossible to get the head of pricing to be flexible. Coming down on price was a big no-no. Now, the pricing committee has three people; and one person from sales has to be there for meetings so we get a sense of the market. It’s important to get all viewpoints, and it’s so easy to do that in the era of BBM and WhatsApp. It takes two seconds to ask— can we go up 50 paise, or come down a rupee? Forget functional teams or managers, even I don’t take decisions single-handedly. I may agree to disagree. And, sometimes I might push a decision through. But, I listen to all viewpoints, and then take a decision. My husband had the advantage of the company being on his fingertips and he didn’t need to reach out as much for advice. I’ve managed so far only because I asked a lot of questions. A key advantage of being a woman is that we have the strength to say, “I don’t know.” A lot of men don’t do that. I find it very easy in meetings to say—can I get a minute to call my office and find out, or that
Our Mommy Bestest!
Ashmita and Abhiroop Gupta on what makes their mother tick
She’s done it all! Anasuya Gupta was a homemaker before she joined her family business, CICO Group.
Anasuya Gupta might not have been confident of what she was capable of but her children Ashmita, 24 and Abhiroop, 22, say they always knew their mother was one of those people who could pretty much do whatever she put her mind to. “She’s incredibly driven. Even on a holiday, if there’s something on her itinerary that she has to do, she’ll get it done. At times, we’re pulling her back from incoming traffic and moving cars because she’s so determined, she’ll just march ahead,” laughs Ashmita, who works with the Asian Development Bank’s Delhi office. Her younger brother chips in, “I play golf with mom regularly. When she’s hitting a shot, she’s so focused that she doesn’t look anywhere. At times, she’s gone and smacked the ball, almost kill-
ing me!” It’s difficult for children to be objective about their parents. It’s an even bigger challenge to highlight the differences and similarities in skills and traits between their parents. Yet, Ashmita and Abhiroop are up to the task. “Mom’s leadership style is almost like a school teacher’s—she has a diary with to-do task lists. She’s super organised, and knows what she and others around her need to do in the next hour,” they say. In contrast, “Baba’s thought horizon was a yearlong. He looked at the big vision, and let the details sort themselves out,” Ashmita says. It’s undoubtedly led to a more professional, structured and efficient organisation. “The change is quite obvious when you walk into the office.”
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The Many Hues of Leadership
I’ll come back with the details later. I owe this ability to my B.Ed. education. During that training many years earlier, I was taught that if you go into class, and a child asks a question, don’t camouflage if you don’t know. Don’t fudge an answer. Tell them you’ll find out and let them know. That’s been a big lesson in my life. In any case, nobody knows everything; we’re all learning all the time. To me, this honest give and take of views and ideas is so critical a need for running a business that I’ve ordered round tables instead of the rectangular tables we have in our conference rooms. In a circle, you feel everybody’s voice is equal, as it should be. Otherwise, the notion of the “head of the table” creates a wrong impression and builds unnecessary hierarchies.
Business Growth & Ambitious Buy-Back Fortunately, things have changed a lot in the past few years. When I took over in March 2008, we had a turnover of `38 crore. We InsiderView
“She is an incredibly transparent person, and very, very open to our feedback. She really is a very good listener. When she first came in after Mr Gupta’s death, so many people were anxious about the company’s future. She had to build trust. So, she formed a core committee of seven people which jointly took decisions. Also, there’s so much more bonding in the company now. She has lunch with all of us every day in the cafeteria. She never eats in her room alone.” Bijnan Parai AVP, R&D (been with the company since 1988) 3 8 | INC. |
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The Many Hues of Leadership
A key advantage of being a woman is that you have the strength to say, I don’t know. A lot of men don’t do that. I find it very easy in meetings to say, I’ll need a minute to call my office and find out or that I’ll come back with details later. I owe this to my B.Ed. education.
—Anasuya Gupta
have nearly doubled that and closed FY2013 with `65 crore. Also, we have managed to buy back the 45.33 per cent share that private equity investor Actis had in our company. They had come on board as investors in May 2000. Buying back our share was one of the biggest challenges I’d set for myself when I joined. I would keep telling our employees that I want this to be your company entirely, and we must meet that objective together. So, we did our first buy back of 22.67 per cent in May 2010, and followed that up a year later with 11.33 per cent in May 2011. Our final buy back of the remaining 11.33 per cent happened in August 2012. I was certain as soon as I joined that I didn’t want to be questioned about the way I wanted to grow the business, or having to report to our investors. I wanted the company to reflect our voice, to be a vehicle for our ambitions. Today, our 200 people are located across five manufacturing units in Gurgaon, Haridwar, Kolkata, Chennai and Kasna. This isn’t an industry dominated by women. In fact, I’m often walking into conference rooms and seminar halls full of men.
The DWEN conference has been such a rarity—I’ve never seen so many business women together!
Diversity, Inclusion & Sensitivity I think the men have adapted very well to the changes that have taken place in our workplace. There is definitely more respect for women. This is a brick and mortar company. I remember when I came in, I would see people call out to even women with a casual “aye”. I made it clear in an open forum that this was not okay to do. There’s no abusive language, screaming and shouting anymore. Because women weren’t in leadership positions in CICO before, people didn’t have to watch their actions as much. A more civilised, sensitised workplace is important to me. But, to be honest, I’m not always conscious about being a woman first, and then an MD. The gender ratio has improved at CICO since I have joined. I’ve made efforts to do that but it’s been difficult. I got in a lot of women at first but I have to confess I got tired. So many women I brought in disappointed me; they didn’t seem to have their priorities right. So, I decided, “Ok, let the men come in.” My intentions were good but I got disheartened. So, I gave up for a while. Now, I’ve restarted the process because when women are focused, their results are much better. For example, there’s this young girl in my office—28 years old who is part of the sales force team. She’s from West Bengal, and is posted in Gujarat right now. She uses a moped, and has done a tremendous sales job. She’s been a great inspiration. I thought if we could get a few more women like her, the impact on the organisation would be huge. So, now, I’ve started looking at positions where I think women can really be very successful. See, you can’t completely negate or deny the social context. There are some roles, areas, or factories where I don’t think sending women would be wise. These might not be places where they’ll have an opportunity to shine. This time, I’m not going to give up easily. It might not work out but I don’t want to have regrets that I didn’t try. As Sheryl Sandberg says, “Don’t leave before you leave.” august 2013 | INC. | 3 9
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When the world got a sniff of India’s first single malt whiskey
Neelakanta Jagdale’s Bangalore-based family business Amrut Distilleries produces about 10 variants of single malt whiskey. But, it is Amrut Fusion, the company’s first brand of single malt, launched in 2003, that got the world’s whiskey connoisseurs to sit up and take notice. But the recognition didn’t come easy. While the Jagdales knew they had a winning spirit in their oak barrels, their journey of making Indian whiskey noticed internationally was akin to walking on thin ice. by ira swasti
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MADE IN INDIA
The Moment
It had been an exhausting day in a London hotel in 2007 for N.R. Jagdale, the chairman and managing director of Amrut Distilleries, and his son Rakshit, the company’s executive director. Their meeting with a potential distributor for Fusion, Amrut’s first brand of single malt, and its most ambitious project till date, hadn’t gone as planned. The distributor had gone back on his word to sell Fusion in London. Jagdale Senior and his son decided to take a walk to Tavistock Square (that had once housed the noted British author Charles Dickens and his family) to blow off some steam. Unknown to both, that conversation was going to be one of the most important turning points in the company’s history. The company had barely sold 2,000 cases of Amrut’s single malt whiskey in the UK since its launch in 2003 but had spent a considerable amount on marketing the product. Jagdale Sr. recalls that conversation from six years back. Sitting on a bench in the park, the then 54-year-old had asked his son if they should even continue to try and sell Fusion in Europe. Wouldn’t giving up be the smarter decision in this case, he wondered out aloud. For one, there was an unpaid rent on the company’s Glasgow office and continuing with the project meant losing much
more money marketing Indian whiskey in nations where palates were used to Scotland’s finest. Jagdale knew it wasn’t financially prudent to spend money at this rate. But, Rakshit assured him otherwise, and asked for more time. He was confident they could turn things around. Jagdale Sr. confesses now what he thought then—that his son’s misplaced optimism was merely young blood talking. Yet, a seemingly serendipitous moment—seeing a 1968-statue of Mahatma Gandhi built in the centre of the Tavistock Gardens—struck a strange chord. “I don’t know if it was right or wrong to talk about liquor in front of the man who was a strict teetotaller and vehemently opposed alcohol. But, it got me thinking—what would have happened if Gandhi too had gone back on what he had intended to do,” Jagdale says. “I was just worried about losing some money on a project. But then I realised if we failed to establish an Indian whiskey brand abroad, it would mean much more to the reputation of the country’s liquor industry.” Jagdale told his son to continue working on the project full steam and promised he’d arrange for more funds. While the Jagdales refuse to reveal the exact amount invested in Fusion’s marketing efforts before and after that moment in Tavistock Gardens, they have invested upto `12 crore in building the Fusion brand since its inception.
A gripping tale of how a 65-year-old Indian distillery got the world tripping over its whiskey. 4 2 | INC. |
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MADE IN INDIA
The Beginning
cOURTESY sUBJECT
Keeping it Neat Rakshit Jagdale (left) and N.R. Jagdale (centre). Renowned critic Jim Murray has put Fusion on his top single malt list thrice.
Neelakanta R. Jagdale had learnt the basics of blending liquor at home from his chemist father J.N.R Jagdale who had started Amrut Distilleries in 1948. Jagdale had joined the family business in 1972 and had to take over the reins of the company only four years later because of his father’s untimely death. Amrut, back then, used to produce rum and brandy for the Indian armed forces as well as the general market. It was not until the 1980s that the company started producing malt whiskey. N.R. Jagdale had been running the business at the conservative levels of growth that the closed Indian economy allowed in the days of the licence raj regime. It was in 1991 that things really took off; when the domestic economy opened up overnight. From protected markets, the industry had to suddenly face the challenge of international players with popular brands and deep pockets entering the market. While Amrut was already making malt whiskey, it was only used to making the blended variety. “With the economy opening, we had to ask ourselves if could develop a product that was of international quality. Making India’s first single malt whiskey was more of a need to survive than anything else at that time,” Jagdale says. Of course, liberalisation brought in several perks too. For one, Amrut got better access to fermentation, distillation and maturation technologies from abroad as well as consultants from Scotland to refine its manufacturing process; whether it was yeast technology, newer methods and temperatures of fermenting, or different times and maturation barrels for its various liquor products. The government had also categorised liquor under the foods processing industry by then, giving it more acceptance in the home market. After more than 10 years of R&D, Amrut was finally successful in launching the first Indian-made single malt whiskey in Glasgow, UK, in 2003. As several connoisseur tastings will certify later on, Amrut had got its product right. But distribution was still going to be a challenge. august 2013 | INC. | 4 3
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Journeying Home Having made a mark on the world, the Jagdales now want to grow the brand at home.
Rakshit Jagdale was pursuing his MBA at the University of Newcastle upon Tyne, New England in 2002 when his father asked him to do his dissertation on Amrut’s marketing of its single malt whiskey in the UK. Having worked in the family business for two years in Bangalore before his MBA, Rakshit was excited at the prospect. “I thought we could tap into the wide Indian diaspora in the UK and pitch our single malt whiskey to Indian restaurants and pubs in Birmingham, Manchester, Glasgow and Edinburgh,” Rakshit says. He imported some select samples of the whiskey from India and showcased the brand in several whiskey shows and exhibitions in the UK along with Amrut’s marketing head Ashok Chokalingam. During his surveys, Rakshit once convinced Ken Storrie, the owner of the multi-award winning pub Pot Still in Glasgow to slip the whiskey as blind tasting malt to his customers, many of whom mistook the whiskey to be 15-year-old Scottish malt. “Their jaws dropped when they came to know it was from India,” Rakshit recollects. But even as customers and connoisseurs appreciated the whiskey, Amrut was cautious never to compare its whiskies with Scottish malt. “Scotland has a 400-year-old history on their side while we have a 100-year-old history of distillation in India. There’s no match,” Jagdale Sr says. Mean4 4 | INC. |
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while, poor response from Indian restaurants in the UK continued. “It had been four years since the whiskey’s Glasgow launch in an Indian restaurant called Café India and we were still struggling to get distributors,” Rakshit says. “In fact, a distributor from London who had earlier shown interest in Amrut had also backed out.” The conversation with his father in Tavistock Square had instilled in Rakshit a new enthusiasm and determination. He decided to change track, and try a different strategy. Jagdale Jr and Ashok Chokalingam, their UK marketing head, decided to spread their wings and sell their whiskey to specialty whiskey and cigar shops across Western Europe, at £40 a bottle. Here, Fusion found a niche, and received a great reception from lovers of exotic whiskies. What was earlier a negative marketing strategy for Amrut—the foreign card— became its primary advantage. In that year, sales of Fusion doubled to about 4,0005,000 cases. Also, the Jagdales were soon approached by a distributor in Canada to sell their whiskey there at $80 a bottle. After a good reception in Canada, Fusion entered the US market in 2008.
Two years later, Amrut finally launched its single malt whiskey in India, albeit only in Karnataka. The move to launch in India late was deliberate, says Rakshit. “We knew Scotch-loving Indians would not have readily accepted an Indian malt whiskey in 2004,” he says. The Jagdales needed to build a strong international brand before launching it at home. The same year, renowned British whiskey critic Jim Murray rated Amrut’s single malt whiskey as the third best in the world in his annual whiskey guide Whiskey Bible 2010. “An Englishman tasting an Indian whiskey and rating it as amongst the top three in the world was noteworthy,” Jagdale says. Today, the company sells 16,000 cases in 22 countries around the world. Their focus areas of growth now are closer to their production units in Bangalore—Jagdales are aiming to get Fusion going in Maharashtra and Andhra Pradesh. But Jagdale Sr confesses there is still a long way to go. “I don’t know if we have achieved success yet. You arrive at a point on the journey to success and then you realise you have to go to another point to feel successful.”
cOURTESY sUBJECT
The Brand
Tactics. Trends. Best Practices.
Strategy
Managing No harassment zone Three keywords for a respectful workplace: educate, educate and educate
PHOTOS.COM
Eighty eight per cent of women have faced
some form of sexual harassment at work, claims a 2010 survey of 600 female employees in India’s BPO/KPO industry by the Centre for Transforming India. If this statistic is not enough, here’s more—91 per cent of these women did not report the crime for the fear of being victimised. Due to the stigma attached to harassment, especially in a patriarchal society as ours, such issues are usually swept under the carpet. Hopefully, things will change. Following the passing of
the Sexual Harassment of Women at Workplace (Prevention, Prohibition and Redressal) Bill in April 2013, and the now infamous Phaneesh Murthy incident, the issue has caught public attention, thanks to the media coverage it has been getting. The new Bill is based on the Vishaka Guidelines of 1997, the earlier framework used to craft sexual harassment policy. Fortunately, the Bill strides ahead of those guidelines. “While the Vishaka Guidelines, too, for the most part had required similar
measures, most organisations found the subject too sensitive to be raised at work and did the bare minimum to stay compliant. They just created policies which were then quietly put on their intranet or in employee handbooks. Building proactive awareness to what it means and how a victim could raise a complaint etc. were rarely communicated,” says Nirmala Menon, founder, Interweave Consulting, a firm that works exclusively on diversity management and inclusion in corporates. With august 2013 | INC. | 4 5
Strategy
tions prevent it effectively, Menon asserts. “This knowledge is especially important for senior leadership as they carry a lot of liability—towards themselves, the people working for them as well as the organisation, and any indiscretion or misdemeanour can have legal consequences as is evident from the recent iGate case,” she comments. Precautionary measures such as training sessions, workshops and campaigns to create awareness will help an organisation mitigate its own liability. Synechron, a New York-based technology consulting firm with an offshore centre in Pune, shows videos and presentations to its employees during the induction process to educate them about the company’s sexual harassment policies, the preventive measures it advocates, and the redressal framework it follows. This module is a key part of the induction process, and insures Synechron against employees feigning ignorance—a typical situation in most companies—to what is acceptable and expected out of them. Added to that, they hold a workshop every year for managers and senior management to discuss this issue, and hold an annual Women Open House for female employees to express their grievances, if any, says Milind Mutalik, senior director, human resources.
Redressing Grievances A Step Forward Here are a few steps that companies can take to prevent instances of harassment at work: 1. Organise workshops to educate employees on acceptable behaviour 2. Hold awareness campaigns around sexual harassment 3. Make it a mainstream subject and encourage people to talk about it 4. Do an anonymous survey asking employees about office environment 5. Inform employees to bring up harassment issues to the right channels for redressal rather than slandering the accused without substantiation
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As per the new Act, all establishments having 10 employees or more are required to have a formally constituted Internal Complaints Committee (ICC). For organisations with less than 10 employees, and individuals in the unorganised sector, complaints are to be redressed by Local Complaints Committees to be set up by the government in every district. “Personally, I am not certain if the government is geared at this time to provide sufficiently trained people to deal with such cases at every district. The chosen committee members will need to deal with complex cases and take fair and quick decisions. Whether we have enough such people to be part of the Local Complaints Committees is something to think about,” Menon says. While the new statute is a much awaited and welcome development, it brings with it several ambiguities and practical difficul-
Speaking Up Often women at the workplace don’t see nonphysical forms of sexual harassment as harassment. There is a critical need to create awareness around that.
ties. For instance, the law imposes an obligation on the employer to constitute an ICC at every office with at least 10 employees—this is a practical concern in organisations with few women employees or if the organisation has multiple branches in the same city, asserts Veena Gopalakrishnan, senior member at the law firm, Nishith Desai Associates. “Another cause of concern is the employer’s statutory obligation to initiate police action in cases of sexual harassment. While victims have the right to take police action and employers have the duty to support and provide assistance to employees in taking such action, imposing the duty of initiating police action against the alleged perpetrator, irrespective of the seriousness of the offence and even in circumstances where the victim is not willing to take such action, maybe a cause of worry for both employers and employees,” Gopalakrishnan says. As per the statute, ICC should have at least four members. “This could result in a divided quorum at the time of decision
PHOTOS.COM
the new Bill, a clearly-formulated policy alone is not enough. It needs to be supported with proactive preventive measures. “The best thing companies can do is educate their employees about sexual harassment,” she adds. This becomes especially important in India where most people understand sexual harassment as only physical. The verbal (in the form of inappropriate comments or sexual innuendos) or non-verbal forms (such as rude gestures) are often not recognised as most victims think they can raise a complaint only if they’ve been subjected to “tangible” behaviour. In fact, in her report, Sexual Harassment in the Workplace: Experiences of Women in the Health sector, Paramita Chaudhuri of NGO Sanhita, finds that most women don’t see verbal harassment as sexual harassment. It’s so pervasive as a form of sexual harassment in India that most women see it as a way of life. Needless to say, the majority of harassment crimes aren’t overt; most occur in the nuanced and layered versions of sexual innuendos, jokes and gestures. Therefore, building awareness and sensitivity around the subject is critical in helping organisa-
Strategy
alarms. Also, a lady guard accompanies the employees in the cab especially after 6pm. “More than that, in the office, we have glass cabins and there are no isolated areas. We also had defence training workshops in our office to make our employees feel empowered,” Mutalik informs.
Office Affairs
making. The composition of the committee should ideally be an odd number so as to allow decision making based on majority,” suggests Gopalakrishnan. An important limitation of the Bill is that it isn’t gender neutral. It does not acknowledge that men can also be victims of sexual harassment. However, most progressive organisations cover all their employees irrespective of gender. “Globally, studies suggest about 90 per cent cases are of women being victims while in about 10-11 per cent cases men are victims,” Menon says. It is imperative to have a zero tolerance policy towards any kind of harassment. Lack of awareness often leads people to underestimate its impact or trivialise it is as harmless “boys will be boys” kind of fun. Yet, Menon says things are changing. “Frivolous jokes about why we need these workshops has decreased over the years. The various instances of crimes against women in the recent past have built a sense of urgency and empathy to take serious action.” She adds that at the gender
workshops her company conducts, there’s been more positive interest and support for the cause from participants across companies.
Creating a Safety Net
The increasing awareness around harassment issues has also led many companies to take that extra step for safety of their female employees. Though this trend had started even before the statute was enacted, it has certainly picked up momentum since then. “At Omega, employees need to take permission if they have to stay beyond office hours. After 8pm, female employees go home only in office cabs. Even if someone from their family comes to fetch them, they are not allowed to join them. Added to that, there is a thumb rule that teams will be constantly shuffled to maintain a healthy gender ratio,” says P.V. Guruvayurappan, vice president, human resources at Omega Healthcare, a Chennai-based healthcare BPO. At Synechron, all office cabs have a route tracking system and emergency
The chances of romantic interests developing at work is high. “Given the long hours required by most jobs, many young people find their spouses at work,” Menon says. Synechron does not have any specific policy regarding office relationships but there’s an unwritten norm that they do not hire an employee’s spouse, Mutalik says. There are several contrasting examples though. “In our company, we encourage couples to work together and any office romance, as long as it does not affect the organisational decorum, is treated as their personal matter,” Guruvayurappan says. Needless to say, office romances are a personal affair and not illegal. But, any public display of affection between two people who maybe in a relationship could make the office environment uncomfortable for others and is a potential complaint. Also, problems usually arise when the relationship is between a manager and her direct reportee. The possibility that it can be perceived as undue favouritism will dilute the integrity of the workplace and lead to a hostile work environment. Besides, if the relationship turns sour, there is a possibility of the subordinate turning around and calling it sexual harassment. In such situations, the subordinate can always claim that she went along with the requests as she feared she would lose her job or suffer some other form of retaliation and the courts would accept that, even if it had been a consensual relationship. “To prevent cases like this one, most organisations require that relationships in their earlier stages are reported to the organisation well in advance so that the reporting relationship can be altered. Otherwise, it could be seen as a conflict of interest,” Menon recommends. —Sonal Khetarpal august 2013 | INC. | 47
Strategy
People Tested OK! Finding the perfect fit
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ond, taking and assessing one to five hour long competency based interviews. “Competency-based interviewing (CBI) is like peeling an onion,” Sethi says. “An interviewer will keep peeling the layers until she gets to know what she wants.” Like any other interview, a CBI may begin with a general question such as—tell us about a situation where you lead a team. But then
the experts would funnel it down with related questions such as—How did you lead the team? How did you build a rapport with others? What was their response? A simple CBI assessment by WTTT could cost about `2 lakh for a group of 20 people, which comes to `2,000 per person, a viable investment to make when hiring senior or mid-level members in key positions.
More offbeat hiring practices HackerEarth, a Bangalore-based portal, allows employers to post programming challenges and customised tests online and analyse each candidate for swifter hiring. Sample a typical post. “InMobi hiring challenge: Hack your way into InMobi and get a direct job offering a salary package of `14-17 lakhs. InterviewMaster is another Bangalore-based firm that provides automated video interviews to employers for pre-screening candi-
dates for job interviews. This enables recruiters to raise the quality of prospective employees before meeting them face-to-face. Recruitment testing engine, iLiftOff, provides online tests to employers that test sector-specific skills in domains such as finance, law and programming. These tests can also be deployed on tablets within the company’s office to provide a proctored testing environment.
PHOTOS.COM
Thanks to a slowing economy and squeezed margins, job vacancies have shrunk. Clearly, that has made the selection of the best candidates from a larger pool a more stringent process than ever before. As Sarjeev Sethi, founder and CEO of the Noida-based HR consultancy People Connect Placements points out, regular “interview-type” questions have given way to more unusual ones that demand the candidate to think on the spot. “You’re more likely to be asked what your top three failures were and what you learnt from them than what your top three achievements were in your last job,” he says. But that’s not quite how recruitment at several small and medium size enterprises works. Hiring in such companies is often focused on assessing a candidate’s technical skills with competency for a role treated as a checkbox on the list; even as it’s more important for smaller and high-growth companies to get people with the right attitude on board as compared to their larger counterparts. They need people who have the hunger and drive to work in an unstructured environment. Testing for these traits correctly therefore becomes very critical. One way to do that is to assess basic behaviourial competencies such as team management, communication and leadership skills after the candidates have been through the usual technical rounds. Way To The Top (WTTT), Sethi’s new venture offers companies a panel of 12 expert competency assessors who help recruiters in two ways—first, by identifying the different competencies required for a specific role, and mapping it to the job profile and sec-
Strategy
A peek into a situation-based competency test Situation #1 In course of regular internal and external audits for a customer, many non-compliance issues have surfaced. Your team has been assigned to eliminate these issues by fixing the process, which will then be implemented by the operations team. You clearly see that these defects can only be eliminated by automation through technology and not through further process. You face resistance from the operations team to comply with the new process and they suggest numerous changes and simplification. What will you do? Situation #2 Your company has just bought out a smaller company, and you are going
However, an alternative or a precursor to spending hours grilling candidates could be a multiple choice question competency test that can be taken by a potential candidate online. Since SMEs are quite dependent on networks and referrals for recruiting people, it would be a worthwhile investment to use these online tests as a pre-screening tool to assess a candidate’s managerial competencies such as client management, client centricity, risk taking ability, decisiveness etc. Aspiring Minds, a Gurgaon-based hiring assessment firm provides such Situation Judgement Tests (see box above) online. “SMEs don’t have as much time or resources to interview potential candidates as larger companies do,” says co-founder and COO Varun Aggarwal. “They look for more automated solutions.” As the name suggests, these Situation Judgement Tests consist of different realistic situations a manager is likely to face while running the business and assessments are based on the candidate’s responses to these situations. For instance, a situation such as the fol-
lowing—there is a person in your team who has a lot of work on her hands and is therefore avoiding taking up any more work. Sometimes, she even passes on the work to another person in the team. The others don’t know what’s going on and this person doesn’t know how to reduce her workload. What will you do?—may be provided along will be four possible options on how to resolve the situation. The candidate has to select the best and worst courses of action from the four given choices. Their answers are then evaluated on the basis of data on how high performing managers respond to these questions. Finally, there are certain roles in an organisation that require very specific skills and when a company posts an opening on a job portal for such roles, some 100 to 200 almost-identical resumes bombard its inbox. In such situations, it’s difficult for HR managers to shortlist a select few for personal interviews. A Bangalore-based firm Get2Galaxy provides gaming tests for eliminating unsuitable candidates in the first step. For instance, if a company is looking to hire quality control managers, it typically wants people with a good eye for detail and the ability to see through things. “These skills cannot be adequately judged on a simple
through the transition phase. The new company’s managers are complaining; they do not like the manager you appointed. You know they do not like him because he is forthright and honest in his insight and assessment. He is the best you have. What will you do? Situation #3 You had a meeting with a client and you shared the old brochure with him. The meeting went well and the deal is just about to be finalised when you realise that the old brochure contains old prices of the product which have been revised now. You need to convey this to the client and not lose the deal. What will you do?
aptitude test based on logical reasoning,” Subramanyam Kasibhat, founder of Get2Galaxy explains. “We deploy online games to judge certain specific parameters required by different job profiles.” So one game from the G2G camp that tests for detail-orientedness is quite similar to the children’s popular puzzle of spotting the difference between two identical-seeming images, albeit with different levels of complexity to be completed within a given period of time. Another game used by companies wanting to assess candidates for design skills that typically require a good sense of geometric thinking or how a person visualises objects and dimensions is the maze game. This game requires an 8x8 virtual maze to be solved in 300 seconds and candidates are judged on how they manoeuvre through the different geometric hurdles without breaking the rules of the game. These gaming assessments could cost a company $100 for 1,000 candidates per assessment. So stop relying on plain vanilla techniques of hiring that begin with a resume round, followed by a technical interview and end with an HR interview. Instead, try scoping out more refined and targeted tests for each role in your organisation. —Ira Swasti august 2013 | INC. | 49
strategy
“A hierarchical structure can kill an organisation.” The Way I Work | Nandita Lakshmanan, The Practice
Nandita Lakshmanan, the founder and CEO of PR firm The Practice, finds work titles embarrassing. It’s why none of the business cards in her company carry a designation. But whether she acknowledges it on paper or not, Lakshmanan is the woman behind the success of her 100-people firm whose clientele includes Infosys, Cadbury and Adobe. It is also the first Indian PR firm to have been shortlisted by the Cannes Lions for its work on HP. A tough task master, Lakshmanan doesn’t like a single e-mail or phone call to go unanswered by her or her teammates. But she’s a fair boss too as she strives to build a healthy workplace sans politics and hierarchy instead of a “cool” one. As told to Ira Swasti | Photographs by Subhojit Paul 5 0 | INC. |
august 2013
Anti-Hierarchy The Practice has no official HQ. Its different vertical heads are spread across Delhi, Mumbai and Bangalore.
Even though I am an entrepreneur who is very passionate about her business and work, I don’t like my life to be overwhelmed by work, with no time for me or my family. I get up at about six every morning as my 11-year-old son Aryaman has a pretty early start to school, and I like to spend time with him at breakfast. He takes about 15 minutes to get ready and those 15 minutes are very precious to me because that is the only quiet time I get for myself in the whole day. I like to enjoy it with a cup of tea. I see him off to the bus stand at 7.20am and then it’s time to feed my son’s Golden Retriever Krypto and spend some time with him. I also have to do pilates at a neighbourhood studio for 45 minutes before I have a very heavy breakfast and head to work. So it may august 2013 | INC. | 51
strategy
“It’s important to distinguish what is expected and what is done exceptionally well.” seem that my mornings are pretty packed to an outsider but I feel an easy rhythm to it all. I like to drive to work myself because it gives me the time to keep my mind away from work and listen to some music. Otherwise, your hands are always busy responding to an e-mail or a text. It takes me anywhere between 15 to 45 minutes to get to work. When I reach office, sometimes there are immediate meetings lined up with clients or my team mates or else, I catch up on my e-mails. My favourite work of the day anyway is to interact with my teams in our three offices and listen to what they are doing. The larger the team, the better. We have a unique structure in our organisation because we don’t have any official headquarters. If the headquarters are by virtue of where the CEO sits, you could say it is in Bangalore. But otherwise, we have a vertical structure with offices in Delhi, Mumbai and Bangalore. While our consumer head sits in Delhi, our technology head sits in Bangalore. We all work seamlessly through phone calls and Skype across these offices and the respective heads meet face to face once a quarter for business review meetings. Even though I am using the words “heads” and “CEO”, we don’t really carry these designations on our business cards because I don’t like hierarchy. Well, internally we do use them sometimes because this generation likes to have titles and because it is required of us as a part of a formal corporate structure. But I personally believe that a hierarchical structure could kill an organisation. Such structures create boundaries about what role each person in the organisation has. As a manager, if I start looking at my team members’ roles and what they should be doing according to those roles instead of looking at their talent and potential, I would be shutting down some great
opportunities. And, as a team member, if I believe in hierarchy and constantly submit to the demands of my manager without understanding or responding to the needs of my clients because I am supposedly ‘junior’, it would create boundaries. I often tell my team that a person is only constrained by their own boundaries. So I really admire those who go beyond their roles and job profiles and not restrict themselves. At The Practice, I make sure we only get self-starters; people who don’t have to be handheld.
I
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n today’s corporate world, people sometimes go ra-ra about things that are basic expectations of people. For instance, if a press conference goes well, people would make a rockstar out of the person responsible. You are a PR professional. That is your job! If you however, manage to get great press after a tough press conference attended by the entire beat of telecom journalists, then it’s worth going ga-ga over. So, it’s important to learn to differentiate between what is expected of you and what you’ve done exceptionally well. Having said that, I believe it is important to acknowledge when a colleague does great work. We are a team of about 100-odd people and many of them are people with two to three years of experience. I’ve learnt that age and experience play very little role in this industry. The confidence to convince a client about a certain idea or a thought process along with taking initiative to get a job done is infinitely more important. What I have observed about several great leaders I have had the opportunity to work with is that they know when it is the right time to let experts decide what’s best. No matter how high on the corporate ladder you get, there will be some people in the organisation who are more adept at something than you are. As a good leader, it’s important to acknowledge that you do not have all the answers. This recognition will always keep you open to ideas from people
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within the organisation and you will listen to them. I love working with clients that do not have a hierarchical structure. Any client that encourages our team to be a part of their team is a delight to work with. Normally, we spend about two to three weeks to prepare our pitch for a client. We never take a pitch lightly. When we get a brief, we first figure out which of us will work on the business if we get it. Once that is decided, all those who will, get involved in the process of building the pitch, even if they’ve never been a part of client servicing or brainstorming before. By assigning everyone an important segment of the work and constantly highlighting how important that certain Beyond Work Nandita Lakshmanan believes it’s essential to “expand your horizons” after task is for delivering the complete work. It’s the reason why she’s very clear about making a distinction between her personal and professional life, and encourages her team members to have a life outside work too. service, we build the team’s confidence and motivation. Even after more than a decade in the industry, it really annoys me when people ask questions about what a PR professional does or when they this company is to be able to pick up my son from the bus stand narrow down its definition to media relations and this includes when he’s back from school and walk him home, and be home clients as well as competition. when he’s home. So I leave office at about 4pm as my son arrives at As you go up the managerial ladder in business, you tend to 4.30pm and I complete the rest of my work at home. I tell him I am focus on the big picture; building the strategy etc. But I have doing my homework when he’s doing his. I also learn semi-classirealised that focusing on execution even if you’re the most cal music, two to three classes a week. I love my time with myself senior-level person in the organisation is important. One should and my son and I do like to make that distinction between personal be willing to roll up her sleeves and do everything. and professional life very clearly. Most of my time is also spent on strategising and planning I think I am a tough boss but I am a fair boss too. I don’t believe with clients but I also make sure I am on top of things everyday. in having a fun atmosphere in the office. Fun in the frivolous or I have a memory of an elephant. I don’t depend on to-do lists or cool and casual way, that is. You could have a lot of fun even when even pen and paper to remember what I need to do. Thankfully, you’re engaged in work. I believe in building a healthy workplace I don’t even have to rely on phone apps to drive my work. The instead where the focus is on meritocracy, recognising talent, givonly things I use actively on my phone are the calendar and ing people the right exposure and an environment which is not answering e-mails. I feel very uncomfortable if an e-mail or call marred by office politics or hierarchy. We are not dependent on goes unanswered. I have to answer every single e-mail I get on our work colleagues to make life interesting for us. I encourage my that very day and answering doesn’t mean simply responding team members to have a life outside work. If they’re working from with a ‘yes’ or a ‘no’ but a more detailed response where I know 9am to 6pm, they are being productive and they shouldn’t be what the next plan of action is going to be. This habit has kept me working beyond eight to nine hours in the office, unless there’s that really efficient at work and I have tried to drill it within the one-off client or job that requires a quick turnaround. It’s essential organisation as well. to expand your horizons beyond work. There isn’t a lot of direct communication that goes from me Since I am at home by 4.30pm or so, I go to bed by 11pm at the to the rest of the teams but responsiveness is one thing I am very latest. Sometimes, it could even be as early as 8pm or 9pm. I don’t particular about. Do not leave anything for tomorrow and when believe in keeping full-time help at home. Doing the usual house you answer an e-mail, don’t just say you will revert, mention the chores keeps me away from work and I enjoy that. I cannot have exact date you will revert by. I don’t like having our clients chase work overwhelm my personal space. I need my space and time and my team members for anything. thankfully, I am fortunate enough to run a business that hasn’t One of the perks that I have allowed myself as the owner of given me a sleepless night. 5 4 | INC. |
august 2013
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founders forum Ten Questions for Ashwajit Singh
The founder of development consultancy IPE Global has led projects in 20 countries across the globe. No wonder, the travel enthusiast would love to do business with the adventurous Tintin.
A company for converting waste to energy since it would resolve two critical global challenges Which TV or movie character would you like to go into business with?
Tintin. A bright and enterprising young man on the team would be an asset for any business
Whom would you trade places with for a day?
Warren Buffet. I deeply admire him for not only being an excellent entrepreneur who has delegated total responsibility to his managers but for his low profile philanthropic activities.
The biggest myth in business is...
That you cannot start a business without capital or contacts. In reality, you need a timely idea backed by the commitment and passion to succeed
If you could time travel, where would you be right now? Perhaps participating in the freedom movement
Who gives you the best advice? My subordinates. It’s important to hire a competent team and back them fully What’s the best advice you have given your children? Enjoy what you are doing and do what you enjoy. Success will follow What have you learned about yourself while running your business?
Business is all about people and I enjoy these interpersonal relations
What have you sacrificed for success? An increased role in public life and participating in clean national politics—an alternative career I would have loved to have
What part of your job would you gladly give up?
I enjoy what I am doing and would not want to give up anything
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as told to ira swasti
subhojit paul
What company do you not want to start but wish someone else would?
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