Infosys Leadership – Pure Intentions are not enough
Despite all round efforts by Shri NRN in bringing new life
into Infosys, indications are not good. Mutual
Trust and Mutual Respect are at an abysmal low.
The major indicator is that
Leaders are bailing out.
So, are the intentions of NRN in question? He is such a fine person with the highest
possible ideals.
I don’t think so. His
integrity and altruism are beyond question.
So what is going on?
Who is the main culprit?
It is CHANGE.
Let me attempt an explanation.
There was a time when we could say Infosys was integrated. A system well integrated is one in which all
sub-systems respond to CHANGE and grow in synchronicity e.g. marketing vs sales
vs operations vs finance vs HRD……
As the organization grew the sub-systems grew at different
paces. E.g. Sales grew faster than HR which lagged even Operations perhaps.
These gaps in sub-systems are called PROBLEMS. These Problems lead to disintegration.
The leadership’s role was to deal with Problems (i.e. Manage) and
to initiate further Change in the
organization. As if the Change from the
environment was not enough, the management itself was creating further Problems
by bringing more Change.
If Changing/Disintegrating is the 1st role of the
management, the 2nd role is to INTEGRATE again and heal the
organization.
This I believe
escaped the attention of the management. Or perhaps it believed that merely bringing by NRN, would help in re-Integrating.
Next question. What was disintegrating?
Four things : Mission/Vision/Values, Org Structure, Processes of
Management and People. The last (People)
I believe are the product, not cause of disintegration.
The first 3 are
what creates the environment in an organization. People generally adapt to it.
We said in the
beginning that Mutual Trust and Respect (MTR) is declining. All these four factors contribute to the
existence or the lack of MTR. MTR is an
output of ALL FOUR.
The mistake we
make is to think that MTR has one-to-one correlation with People only. Simplest solution then : Bring NRN in. Too simplistic.
So what is the
solution?
A change in the
understanding of “What is a Leader”. Nothing
better than this video to explain this :
WHAT IS A LEADER : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=obVFglp2Oh4
The above insights
have been triggered by the Adizes way of thinking.
[For those interested in knowing the FOUR factors better, let me know.]
