The success of the world’s greatest leaders is incomplete without the story of their struggles. Think Martin Luther, Mahatma Gandhi or Nelson Mandela, and their achievements are greater in the light of their struggles.

Leadership belongs to people who believe in the goodness of bad times. As businesses go through a turbulent time worldwide, it is important to remember that businesses are reaching out to us not because we were completely untouched or escaped the drubbing, but because they believe we understand and know how to lead them through their tough times.

I have spoken about this being the age of collaboration before. We are witnessing many leaders like CISCO show how effective and profitable this can be. But as businesses increasingly look at realigning their strategy, the question we are really asking is: Are we going after the business or is it coming to us because of the value we can offer to their business? Or in other words are we leading the game or being led?

Leadership is not just about leading people or about being heard. If at all, it is about listening, asking uncomfortable questions and taking tough decisions. The decisions of most leaders are considered revolutionary only in retrospect. In their own time, the best of leaders face brickbats and criticism.
But as people saw value in their words and their actions, these leaders manage to draw people to them. Which is why, the recession will well be our grooming ground of tomorrow’s leaders.

In today’s business scenario, this would mean the ability to pick the right signals when we see ourselves losing relevance. To do so, leaders will need to constantly step aside to see through the maze and understand what will be of relevance to their partners not just in the present but also in the future.

The days of market control are long gone. The competitive pyramid is increasingly flattening out as we operate in markets of equal opportunities. And differentiating in this playing field will mean providing solutions that compel our customers and our people to reach out for us - for the value that we bring, and the difference that we make to their lives.

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Whether it is missing intelligence reports on terror attacks or backing off from a deal that goes on to create millions, the world in retrospect can be a cruel one for those who miss the signals.

So while there are businesses waiting for the right opportunity and conditions in these times of perceived uncertainty, there are also those who believe in simply playing it out irrespective of what the soothsayers are saying.

What differentiates the two is the insight to read and anticipate the next signal or step. Dr. C.K. Prahalad captures this perfectly when he calls for businesses to look at the `next practices’ and ‘amplifying weak signals’ instead of getting stuck in old methods.

With the global recession, the needs of the market have changed. Our customer needs have changed. As companies lose their competitive advantage, new businesses are picking up the new way of thinking.

Change often catches people unawares. It is a tad surprising that the recession left most people shocked even though the writing had been on the wall for a while. I had written about another significant change in my blog a year ago, one that many people missed until it stared us in the face - the global economy’s tilt eastwards. I had felt these signals during my conversations on many trips overseas and conversations across the `aisle’.

Within the IT industry, we have been witnessing ripples of change. At HCL we follow them in what we call the blue ocean strategy as against a crowded red ocean. In 2005 we had decided to separate discrete services EDM, BPO and EAS. We decided to chase integrated services as part of the blue ocean. Today, we are witnessing the industry following the same thing. Similar was the take on big acquisitions and clearly those who read the signals right have reaped the benefits.

Now again, there are distant signals which I believed would become drum beats fairly quickly. And, within the deafening drums of the downturn, once again, it is easy to miss the weak signals of recovery.

Beyond the broken dreams and the tumbled enterprises, there is a slow awakening happening. So why talk about the disappointments and the sad news ahead rather than look at all the innovative opportunities waiting to be grabbed?

What we actually pay attention to is very much determined by what we expect to see, point out Paul J.H. Schoemaker and George S. Day in the MIT Sloan Management Review. This distorted notion or selective perception, they note, makes people distort reality when they find it is not fitting into their mental model. They note that most often, organisations get blindsided not so much because decision makers aren’t seeing signals, but because they jump to the most convenient or plausible conclusion.

We need to learn to listen closely and recognize these new pulses of life. We need to amplify these signals and connect the dots rather than fall into the trap of projecting a linear future on trends of the past.

Discovering new areas of growth and fresh opportunities will be the key here. So the questions to be asked are, where is the opportunity ahead, what can we do leverage it. Or rather simply, what is the next big idea and start retracing the steps from there rather than focus on the situation today.

Those who listen to the signals carefully will find the new shores of the blue ocean. So if total IT outsourcing line is on its way out for sure, what is the next big idea? It is time to make noise about the next blue ocean strategy, be it utility computing or something else.

Listening carefully to the customer’s changing needs will be the key to discovering the new road. And those who don’t will perhaps simply have to look back in retrospect to decipher the signals they missed.

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First – Global IT industry has been a big employer of young talent across the globe because of the increasing influence of IT in business transformation. The global meltdown is being seen as an opportunity to transform by many CEOs across the world and they are looking at IT to lead this transformation.

Second – Technology innovation is driving IT complexity and strict compliance norms & concerns of business continuity is driving a need for repeatable processes and assured performance.

Third - IT has become “glocal”- it has to transcend geographic and demographic barriers to deliver this transformation.

Therefore, when we look at talent hiring, development and deployment on a global scale, we cannot afford to create artificial boundaries that global commerce does not support and at the same time we cannot make the mistake of assuming that talent from a handful of countries can meet the new demands being made on Global IT as being local with the customer is a critical factor that will drive our ability to truly partner with our customers.

That implies that high quality talent needs to be available across the globe that can drive this opportunity. Unfortunately, that is not true. While there are good examples of some countries putting emphasis on changing their education system to make it more business ready or what I call “increasing employability” – in most parts of the world, education and employability are not in step with each other, resulting in significant investment being made by individual companies in training.  The employability challenges are universal. This includes countries like India and China where there isn’t a dearth of education institutions, but “employability” issues persist.  In the US, President Obama had mentioned expanding access to higher education as one of the basic pillars of America rebuilding itself into the superpower status it enjoyed . http://www.barackobama.com/issues/education. 

The four parties who need to play a role in addressing this critical challenge are - the Government, education institutions, the industry, and the students themselves, who need to understand the changing role of IT and the world of right-first-time processes along with innovation to drive effective transformation. None of the four can make this work in isolation - it has to be a well coordinated approach.

Thus the real debate is not about who is smarter or how can we create trade barriers to protect jobs-the real debate is how do we invest in every country and ensure we create rich employable talent that is globally available that will drive efficiency and innovation in our businesses.

We have a very large pool of very talented and educated youth. It is our responsibility to right invest in them.

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I am referring to the click of the ballot.

We all recognize the fact that no man is an island, nor is any company. That there is this inherent power that each one of us has to bring about change; to add value.  A company cannot be known just by the quality of its work. It is also known by the culture it promotes amongst its people. There is a role for corporate citizens beyond the busy debates of a corporate boardroom, shop floors and offices and to our community, country and planet. A role that demands we move from being mere spectators to participants; from a voice of complaint on what doesn’t work to that of action. 

So what does this entail? We need to ensure that we play our part in change by using the biggest power that a democratic republic gives its citizens – the freedom to choose.

As India exercises its right to the ballot, it is important that each one of us makes it our priority to get the indelible ink on our finger. We are living in a world today that is beset with political instability. A robust democracy is our best bet against this. 

It is disheartening to see some people hide behind the ‘utility or futility’ argument and dismiss this much important day as just another holiday or a waste of time. We enjoy the freedom of choice that our constitution provides us, but it is also our responsibility to ensure that we perform our duties as responsible citizens.
 
Consider this fact: In Australia, voting is mandatory and any citizen who doesn’t vote receives a letter asking why. Those without an acceptable excuse, like illness or travel abroad, must pay a small fine. Although the number of people fined for not voting is estimated to be less than 1 percent of eligible voters, the point made here is big.

Voting may or may not be mandatory. But it’s a choice that you make because you believe in change, or at least, the choice of it.

At HCL, building an environment steeped in ethics, transparency and conscience has been at the heart of our philosophy. Pursuing excellence and value in an environment that promotes corporate governance has been our choice.
Our Community Service Council is one of the most active internally, and has helped inspire and improve the lives of the underprivileged across the country. Our Go Green initiative has seen a conscious effort being made by every employee towards building an eco friendly environment, be it through reducing paper usage or energy. Similarly, participation in the electoral process is another fundamental responsibility towards society.

By taking on this responsibility entrusted on us, each one of us is helping build the India we want to live in. ‘No more excuses’ is how we dub it at HCL. And to those still taking cover behind inertia, we ask simply: What’s your excuse?
 

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Today, when I go around the world and listen to people talk about the difference we are making to the business of our clients, the value we deliver and the impact we make, there are three words that resonate every time. The HCL Team.

And I must admit that every time I hear our clients mention those words with a sense of pride, I feel the gleam of a parent who has just seen his young child win his first game or graduate from high school with flying colours or for that matter bought that first house. It’s a pride that is seldom matched, and I feel that pride every time the team pushes the envelope to new heights and place HCL a notch higher.

This week has given us all one more reason to rejoice. Being ranked as the No. 1 “Best Employer” in India and to be named among 25 Best Employers in Asia by Hewitt in its 2009 Study is a great recognition of our employee centric culture.

Seeded in the belief of transforming talent by maximizing personal potential as against monitoring professional performance, our Employee First philosophy believes in giving our employees the space to grow, time to think and right tools to use for achieving results. Over the years, every decision taken by us has been dictated by the need to provide our employees a unique and differentiated experience.

When the Employee First initiative was first started, it was aimed at shifting the needle of accountability to the management, so they become accountable to the true value creator of a company – the employee.

The ranking in the Hewitt Study reaffirms our philosophy and the focused and dedicated work put in by each of our 55,000 strong employee force. Pushing for an employee centric philosophy in a customer driven world was not an easy task.  It was a challenge that we took on because we sincerely believed in the power of our people, in the fact that leaders are born not at the top of pyramid but in the ranks. 

A good employer today needs to ensure that his people are delivering to their potential through continuous empowerment and improvement. This comes from strong systems and their diligent execution.

The best employer always shows resilience in choosing the unbeaten path and empowering his employees along with way by not just allocating roles and responsibilities with care but also equipping them with the right tools to achieve the most out of their role.

As we face the probability of an even more uncertain time, investment in people will act as the key differentiator in businesses. According to the Hewitt Study, the best companies globally still continued to focus on training and development. So clearly, the results, no matter where you are, will not come at the cost of talent but on account of them.

Pride and passion for what you do is what drives performances at the workplace, and I have always believed that result oriented performance is what separates real leaders from the rest. The current times have brought in a lot of instability and empowering employees will be pertinent to ensure they are able to deliver their best.

They say it is hard to get to the top, and even harder to stay there. So while, we pat ourselves on the back for the unbeaten path we took, staying there will require us to continue keeping employees at the heart of our decisions.

That is how I see us beating through the maze to emerge as a people driven company. And with over 55,000 sharp and dedicated minds nursing the HCL dream everyday, I know we will not just stay there, but conquer new peaks along the way too.

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Three decades on, Maslow’s words still hold true. If you look around, it would seem that the whirlpool of downturn has sucked everybody in; no matter where you go, people are talking job cuts, cost cuts, freeze and the death of business literally.

Tough times bring with them tough questions. And those who dare to look beyond the viels of comfort and present answers in a daring way, are often the ones to lead the way.

If you do a 360 degree turn to see what we are doing at HCL or, in fact, have achieved over the years, you will realize that we have always navigated the whirlpool by going in its direction of rotation and using innovation as the centrifugal force to help us up and out of its current.

We dared to think different and introduced an employee centric philosophy in a customer driver business world. The world watched us with curiosity in the beginning, puzzlement later and today we can easily say that we have wowed them with our Employee First philosophy that continues to be the heart of our working.

The current economic scenario demands that far from desperately trying to protect what we have, we reach out for the thrill of ruling newer worlds. This is what we did with our acquisition of Axon at a time when there was much doubt over the risks involved in it. If we are contemplating an onward journey, Axon is the kind of risk we have to take and believe in.

It’s a difficult task to be sure, to swim against the tide but the need of the hour does call for a maverick’s touch. An appetite for risks, a fierce independence in thought, innovation and objectivity. All of this has to be a part of life, if not life itself. There is no other way out of the whirlpool that time throws us into now and then.

This exodus in thinking is as much outward as it is inward. It is people who recognize the potential in the rising steam. This is how, I believe, we’ll catch a glimpse of the starry skies and shooting stars. Chances are, the very human wish for a pat on the back will come true sooner than we think it will.

This is why the recognition of our bold initiatives at the Financial Times Arcelor Mittal Boldness in Business Awards is not just reassuring but also re-energising. It is humbling to know our boldness in business, innovative leadership stance, approach to decision-making & corporate strategies and pre-occupation with people rather than processes have been globally appreciated over names like Twitter, Nintendo, American Apparel and Santander by both the readers of FT and the eminent members of the jury.

The bar has been raised now and we have a challenging journey ahead of us. And we need to continue to keep that bold step forward to set new heights of excellence as we chart a new course.

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There is a lot of bad news doing the rounds. This is only natural at times like this as companies struggle to protect their bottom-lines and even stay afloat. But what is not natural is the ‘vulture culture’ that is gaining ground with people beginning to feed off such news to generate even more alarm. 

We have to be wary of this. Yes, bad news sells, but extraordinary times demand extraordinary rules. Rather than giving prominence to doomsday forecasters, all of us collectively need to focus in the right direction. And I mean everybody - be it media, analysts, investors, entrepreneurs, employees, government. 

This is the time to stay positive. The time to look for the hidden opportunity. And there are quite a few who are doing just that.

As a case in point, let us look at rural India. Many of us still believe that in India the term ‘rural economy’ implies agriculture. Would it surprise you to know that industry and services now constitute around 60% of income generated in rural India? And this share is only rising. Rural India has also traditionally been equated with poverty. Yet today, according to estimation by Omkar Goswani, people belonging to top 20% households in rural areas spend much more than an average urban household. 

Looking behind the veneer, these statistics tell us a story of pioneers finding emerging opportunities in the villages of India.

In HCL, we call it ‘blue ocean strategy’ - to look for opportunity where few people have ventured before. We are not the only ones. There are several companies that are still managing to splash bright colours on today’s bleak canvas by posting healthy growth rates.  

The fact is that India still promises ‘growth’ and even at the most pessimistic forecast of 5%, it is still higher than the Hindu rate of growth that had plagued the economy for years. In fact, the world is hoping it will lead the world out of its troubles.  I was reading an interview with Mr. Suman Bery, Director-General of the National Council of Applied Economic Research, in which he likened the present state of the economy to “a kind of step adjustment” between a period of unsustainable boom and another growth period. Unlike those who believe we are in a downward spiral like the rest of the world, respected economists like Mr Bery validate believers like us who are convinced that this is a ‘corrective’ stage; that our fundamentals are strong. We have a large domestic market to support a sound economic base, growing infrastructure, and the necessary policy support.  

However, the critical piece in this jigsaw is our attitude, and that is what we have to protect from corrosion, guarding ourselves zealously against the Vulture Culture.  

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This story started 23 years ago, in 1986, when at HCL we decided to be the first to introduce UNIX in India. I walked into the R&D center in Chennai (Madras then) to meet the man who was leading the development initiative - his name was M. N. Divakar (MND to his friends). If my memory serves me right, I walked up three floors and knocked on his room with anticipation.  It was a small no nonsense room, with a whirlpool of energy and MND sitting right at the center. That is the way MND is - always in the center of action. 

Many long strategy sessions later, we became friends and spent significant time on Marina Beach after office, talking about our passion and life in general. I came to know the real person behind the super intellect.  He was a man with a mission and wanted to move ahead in the technology race and truly believed that everything was “possible”. That made him the center piece with HCL gaining No. 1 position in Indian IT landscape led by the UNIX products he rolled out. That was the golden period for HCL and he was leading it from the front. He navigated his team through complex technologies and market challenges with his approach and he won. 

Life took us in different directions - he went to the U.S. to head a business and I got busy doing other things. A few years later, I heard of his first brush with cancer. I met him during those days. He had not lost his spirit, nor his focus on work and was 100 percent sure that he will beat cancer.  He systematically and clinically went after cancer and won the battle just because of his positive attitude.  

Our journey connected us again in 2005, when I had the first long chat with him after many years and I saw the same hunger in his eyes. He told me “give me something very difficult to do, I want a new challenge”. I saw that he had not changed one bit and was ready to chase the impossible dream. We started the journey of transformation within HCL. Once again, he was core of the think tank and the biggest champion of change, as my friend, philosopher and guide.  

It was too good to last. Summer of last year the cancer reappeared, bigger and meaner this time. He called me and shared the start of a new battle in his life. I asked him how he wants to deal with it because doctors were throwing not-so-good statistics. He said he wants more challenges.  Forty eight hours later, we had a conference call with all leaders at HCL to share that MND has decided to pursue two battles - one for his life and one to transform a part of our business that needed significant change. He was excited, charged and full of hope that he will beat it again.  

The cancer treatment was tough and unpredictable. However, MND had made up his mind that he will fight it and not stop working. So he would be on conference calls while in the hospital, he would send mails while the blood transfusion was going on. He was completely in charge and in control, irrespective of how bad he felt. He was focused on his promise to transform the business he was leading. He would attend conference calls with me at odd hours even if he had no energy to speak. He would only listen and you would see a clear mail from him after few hours on what he will do. Any suggestions that he takes it easy were met with “Don’t be ridiculous”. 

We stopped talking about cancer, other than his emails that gave me status updates where he would celebrate small victories and talk about resolving to fight the setbacks.  

January 15 was one such day and he wrote “the results of the first scan after two months of radiation looked positive with substantial improvement in the tumor. This is a significant milestone in the treatment plan.” 

We both thought that he had won it again and planned his trip to India to start a new challenge and to celebrate his 30 years in HCL. I guess that was not meant to be, as his situation deteriorated with each passing day and at a speed which no one anticipated.  

Today, he is in the hospital on life support, knocking on Heaven’s door. I think he has won again. He has taught me and many others, the art of fighting impossible battles and winning. Everything is really possible and he is right. These may be the last few days he spends with us and I want to take this opportunity to spread his message to as many people, as I can as I see his victory in that message. Let’s learn from him and pray that God gives us more spirited people like MND who have shown the world a new dimension to life and how to live it. It is not important whether you live it or die; it is how you live which really counts.  

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We in India have been bred on the adage: Necessity is the mother of invention. On a lighter vein, is it also often referred to as jugaad. But seriously, we have seen scarcity breed innovation all around us.

The Maruta tractor-trailer that runs on a water pump in the villages carrying villagers across long distances is one such innovation. The Nano car is saluted as a manifestation of innovation or ‘frugal engineering’ with the power to find more in less. Our parents have always sensitized us to consider every drop and every grain as precious. Our culture revolves around an attempt to get best out of the least. And innovation is the key to this.

Fortunately, our generation has seen growing prosperity. So, the kind of scarcity we see today in the cities where we operate is a different kind of scarcity – that of skilled talent, capital, and now of an appetite for risk.  

It is only innovation that can and will drive us out of this. This innovation I am referring to is not just about new products. I am talking about disruptive, transformative innovation – a whole new approach to business.

Sure, the ground under our feet has shifted. But isn’t that what we had been saying all along: that change is the only constant? These times should be seen as an opportunity to transform – both organizationally and personally. It will certainly separate the grain from the husk. But, more importantly, it should change the way we all think.

Now I am going to set a ground rule in my blog. I am not going to use words like crisis, catastrophe, depression…so freely brandied around to describe these times. These can only get us deeper into a hole as I honestly believe our biggest obstacle right now is our collective psychology.

We need to go on the offense, not on the defense. Rather than worrying about the impact on our company, we should be focused on innovative approaches to reduce the impact on our customers, our employees, our shareholders. That will take care of our company automatically.

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The very next day, while announcing his nominee for head of the SEC, president-elect Barack Obama noted that there needed to be a shift in ethics in business and that “everybody from CEOs to shareholders to investors are going to have to be asking themselves not only is this profitable, not only whether this will boost my bonus, but is it right?

Much as we would have wanted to move beyond these sentiments and focus on navigating our ships through an already challenging environment, the disclosures made by Satyam have brought this issue from the US and Wall Street to much closer home. And yet, it only confirms a trend we have been witnessing among organizations to select partners with a track record of performance, innovation, and above all - a robust corporate governance structure.  Credentials today run far beyond turnover, growth and profits. They extend deep into ethics, integrity, credibility, track record, domain experience, creativity, professionalism and corporate governance.

In other words, in addition to ‘what a company does,’ it is equally important to focus on ‘how it does it.”  Looking ahead, sustainable business can only be built on a culture of trusted partnerships with each and every stakeholder group – including employees, customers, shareholders, vendors, regulators. Trust through Transparency – a core value at HCL for long – will finally gain its due recognition as the only way forward.  As customers move out of the economic turbulence of the recent past, there will be a clear shift towards service providers that can create the highest business value while maintaining the highest ethical and governance standards. For the financial health of business can only be anchored in trust.

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