On Leadership and Decision making:

Wisdom from T V Mohandas Pai:

On Leadership and Decision making:

·         Every little decision has big consequences and many more end in failures than those that hit the mark.

·         The fear of erring or being accused of wrong decision makes most leaders and organizations base their decisions on precedent. Doing the right thing requires complete awareness and honesty.

·         Self awareness allows a leader to make the best decisions for the organization and not just for oneself. It also makes the leader more open to contrarian inputs and gives the decisions the flavor of consensus. Subordinates lend to tell the leader what one wants to hear and that leads to poor decisions that hurt the organization.

·         An open culture which encourages different views is essential to make the right decisions

·         Leaders like to establish homogeneity in the organization through conformity.

·         In uncertain conditions with too many variables the decision makers would do better by erring on the side of experimentation instead of experience. 

·         Committees and long meetings are the biggest enemies of fast and effective decisions-making. While consultations and consensus are vital for the quality of decisions too often meetings tend to degenerate into durbars for the bosses.

·         To bring speed and quality to decision making, it is necessary to flatten the hierarchy and even push the decision making authority to those who perform the task and roles.

·         Technology allows instant consultation and collaboration and allows automation of routine and repetitive decision. Data can be analyzed by algorithms and trained to adapt to any changes in business events and adjust decisions accordingly.

·         Machines validate and predict business events but humans must make the strategic judgments and bear the final responsibility. 

·         The central role of decisions is to upgrade the present to a better future.

·         Decisions involve a paradox of preventing risks and taking risk at the same time.

·         Decisions separate the leader from the herd.

Source: Indian Management, August 2018

Women Leadership.....Indra Nooyi

Indra Nooyi in her conversation with Stephen J Dubner   on the topic “The Secret Life of CEO” shares her valuable experiences in her journey as a CEO of Pepsi. Excerpts from that conversation:

She is a conservative person, non-conventional and a fire brand. She had no plans to become a CEO yet she continued to make consistent gradual moves. She agrees that being a CEO is a very daunting job and one has to be ready from day one to take the mantle. She also pre warns that there is nothing called honeymoon period and one has to learn in a hurry “how to run the company through extreme periods of adversity and there is no book you can read. You have to develop the book as you go along that is very tough.”

She emphasizes that consumer taste changes all the time which is a great opportunity to change the entire portfolio and the co-culture so as to deliver phenomenal returns. She says, “Study every idea very carefully and think of its implementation.” She opines that listening to activist and treating them with respect makes more sense. Her view for younger generation is to train them very well in STEM (Science, Maths, Engineering, and Technology) disciplines especially when they are young; learning and understanding STEM at an  young age helps the individual to learn all other subjects easily while moving up to higher positions whatever the job is. She used the term “incremental innovation” for growth and scaling.

For women employees she suggests to develop “adaptation strategy” especially to tackle domestic concerns so that women will not feel resentful and angry. She insisted the need for complete support and help from the extended family to handle issues relating to kids and aged parents; so that women can scale to higher positions. For women the biological clock and career clock are in total conflict with each other she says. Women are still searching for role models to learn lessons she says. Her deep concerns are, even today Women CEO are looked at differently, everything you say or do gets analyzed in a different way. “Any industry trendsetters go through this sort of scrutiny, criticism or commentary.” Hopefully the number of women CEO increases and are not seen as women CEOs but leaders of a big enterprise. Hope this comes sooner or later. She says.

She laments that it is incredibly lonely at the top; to overcome this she suggest to talk to lot of people especially other CEOs you trust, learn from them what they did when faced with similar situations. She also suggests that women CEOs have to create their own eco-system…without giving away any confidential information. She emphasizes that the day you become a CEO you have to thing of grooming a successor—safe hands to do the uncomfortable jobs. According to her business issues never become business issues; putting money to work for the next generations is critically important; thinking about society and community; and to evolve a business model that takes into account the changing societal trends; need to look at the issues holistically; to be sensitive to the societies around the world in which they operate.

Lastly she states Nooyi’s as a boss:

·         Has very high standard;

·         Holds and helps everyone to reach this high standards;

·         Very demanding and caring;

·         Someone who works as hard as everyone does;

·         Is there alongside everyone pushing all to be a better person and a better executive.

After Serving 24 years at PepsiCo and 12 years as the Chief Executive of the company Indra Nooyi will step down on October 3, 2018

Source: http://freakonomics.com/podcast/indra-nooyi/

When you make a wrong decision in Financial investment

Lessons from wrong decisions:

·         Make Peace and be kind to yourself; forgive yourself.

·         Evaluate what you did for the lessons it holds;

·         Take responsibility;

·         Identify your inherent weakness that influenced you take this decision;

·         Ensure you are equipped to not repeat the mistakes;

·         Look out the underlying problem that contributed to your decision;

·         Speak up and take help; Resolve than allow this problem to fester;

·         Know that you can control and what you cannot;

·         Question your ability to take change in your stride; Recognize your limitations;

·         Find a better way to do things; Don’t let a wrong decisions go waste

Source Uma Sashikant, TOI 13 August, 2018