Virender Kapoor is a leadership coach and an author. His most recent book, Rise and Rise of Jugaad, has just been released. Kapoor was earlier director of Symbiosis Institute and is now running the Management Institute for Learning and Excellence in Pune. Kapoor brings a down to earth and fresh outlook on an issue that confronts us all in our pursuit of global excellence. He removes the aura of mysticism that surrounds leadership and makes it accessible to everyone. DARE spoke to Kapoor on key issues leaders face in today’s global business environment
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You emphasise discipline so much, can you throw some light on why we are so obsessed with discipline?
I had an experience in one of my seminars, which opened my eyes to the problem of lack of discipline in India. I was moderating a discussion at the Indian headquarters of a Chinese company. In the course of the discussion, one of the senior members in the audience started bragging about how India would overtake China soon. Immediately, the head of the Chinese operations said, “People here don’t even come to office on time. How can you talk about India overtaking China?” This obviously tensed up the atmosphere a bit, but it was an absolute fact.
Coming on time and being responsible for your actions is all a culture that you build into your organisation. Culture and discipline are closely related to each other.
Do you think we can ensure that kind of discipline in the modern workplace?
Look at companies like IBM, which has offices in thousands of locations and they have been able to enforce discipline. Look at a company like Tata, which has a well defined code of conduct, and they have been able to enforce the same level of discipline across their group companies.
If your intent is right, then I don’t think multiple locations will be a roadblock for bringing in discipline. As a leader, you have to ensure that you do not take the path of least resistance, be soft and crave for cheap popularity thereby. You have to hold continuous reviews with people in remote locations and carry a level of trust so that they are comfortable reporting precise information and do not provide a wishy-washy picture to avoid punitive action. That is
the key.
How does the philosophy of being fair to all look in the perspective of what Jack Welch says about differential treatment to stars and farmers in a company?
If Mr A has committed a mistake and you have given him punishment Y, when Mr B commits the same mistake, you cannot give him a different punishment. You have to reward and punish equally. Do not be biased and don’t have any personal or emotional attachments. It should be well known that whatever you have done, you will be punished as per the book and it can’t happen any other way.
In an organisation, you have to set up a feeling of trust so that whenever someone comes with a complaint, he knows that he will be treated fairly. The leader has to demonstrate that his behaviour is the same under all circumstances with everyone.
What should a leader keep in mind in the pursuit of fairness?
You can’t break the rules, but you can bend them. So, bend them, provided it is for the larger good of the organisation, and not for your personal gain. When you are in a position of leadership, there is a lot of responsibility on your shoulders – you should understand that. And if you want people to follow you, you’ve got to show things which will demonstrate that while you are harsh when it comes to discipline, you can bend for the good of the organisation. All this is circumstantial. The leader will have to take responsibility, a certain amount of risk and be thoughtful about his actions.
You talk about giving oneself time to settle down – is this possible in this rush hour?
It depends on what kind of task you have on hand. If you are a large organisation, you really require more time. If you are steering a Titanic, it will take more time (to turn it around), and if you are steering a speedboat, you can turn it around quickly.
If you are in a very large organisation and you have the task of turning around some part of it, you cannot do it overnight. This cannot be done by looking at a few emails and talking to a few heads of department. You should have time to settle down and take a stand on the state of affairs. You must understand your role, your team and then only can you start performing. Do not rush into performance too fast.
Today, every organisation has different problems and you are expected to solve them. You can’t say that the past leader messed it up. The top brass should understand this situation and say, look friend, take some time, understand the issues at hand and then start performing. You can’t expect the leader to start performing from day one. So I would say, don’t be too slow, but do not be too fast either.
How do you think organisations should structure their appraisal reviews?
I really feel that normally, reviews become more about performance evaluation, where you put a guy in a spot telling him what he did right and what he messed up. I think reviews should be more like continuous feedback. It need not be too often, as in every 15 days, but also not too far spaced out, like once in a quarter. You should have a bi-monthly feedback opportunity where the manager talks to his team member and offers feedback and also seeks feedback. By doing this, you will avoid taking the team member by surprise at the end of the year.
Delegation is an evil word, yet people cannot operate without it – where’s the gap?
Leadership is all about managing time and resources. Typically, they are inversely proportional. That is when we come to the question of delegation. Here, the biggest issue is people hesitate to delegate. Most often, people want a 100 per cent return on what they delegate. This is what many call perfectionism. You’ve got to accept that the rate of getting things done will not be 100 per cent. Once you accept this, people will be more at ease delegating.
Another issue is of the capability of the person to whom you are delegating. It is an art to get things done. It is not always that you will get the right skills for your job. You have to train the resource and delegate the work with thorough detailing. It is always safe to make your instructions as clear as possible. Remove any ambiguities in your instructions. And depending upon the seriousness of the job, identify points at which you will seek a progress report from your team member.
The third thing to do while delegating is to plan thoroughly. General Montgomery used to plan his battles very thoroughly and then he would let the field commander who was fighting on the ground take decisions as required. Having done his planning, the general was fairly sure of the various outcomes.
How can somebody build a good organisational culture right from the beginning?
Culture is like a spoonful of curd put in one litre of milk – it is that important. You can adopt Six Sigma, get ISO certified, but you cannot build culture just as you did with the certifications. Culture has to be built and built right from the beginning of the organisation. We see it seeded during the nascent stages of the organisation.
Today, it is not enough if you do things right, you need to say that I will not allow others to do wrong. It is a national priority. We have to fix our culture of culture building. We are individual-centric, we are not society-centric. We have to take care of our culture. Culture is our ultimate ambassador.
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Virender Kapoor is an educationist and an author. He was Director of the management Institute under the Symbiosis umbrella. He later started MILE-Management Institute for Leadership and Excellence located at Pune.
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