It has been the proverbial stimulant of great leaders. And every aspiring one almost always misses. Good times are what people identify leaders with. And tough times are what turn them into leaders.

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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Leaders are known not just for their great hits but also their misses. Be it the political landscape or the world of sports, seldom have great names escaped missing the opportune moment or overlooking them.

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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A lot has already been said on the topic of talent and the way different countries look at it. I wish to add my views to this debate especially from an IT industry point of view. Let me start by stating three obvious trends that will drive talent demand.

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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As members of the tech world, we all know the power of a click. Across the world, with the power of a click, businesses are being transformed, information is traversing continents, knowledge is being shared and even rockets launched into space.  Now think about the power of a million clicks, or hundreds of millions of clicks changing the destiny of nations.

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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They say a man is known by the company he keeps, a King by the army he leads and a parent often by the conduct of their child. In the post modern world, it would perhaps be pertinent to say that any great leader will come to be known by the team he leads.

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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Abraham Maslow best summed it up when he said that “one can choose to go back towards safety or forward towards growth. Growth must be chosen again and again; fear must be overcome again and again.”

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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In our folklore, there is an adage that says nobody notices a man climbing onto an elephant but for some strange reason everybody sees him falling off. And this was before the age of Youtube! 

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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How does life appear from a bed for someone who is staring at Heaven’s door in front of him and looking back at life slipping out? What would he be thinking as his life hangs on the life support system and his family grapples with a decision that I wish no one ever has to make? He is my friend of years and I see him slipping out of my reach. I feel very sad today, mixed up in emotions that are difficult to share. However, what matters most is what he would want me to think today? Somehow I know the answer, thus this mail is to share the story of my friend, while he battles for his life in a hospital in California. 

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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I enjoy reading Jonathan Schwartz’s Blog – a link of long standing on my blogroll. Some months ago, when I was among a few lonely voices talking about opportunity in what was being pronounced as gloom, Jonathan wrote on his blog: “There’s opportunity everywhere I look.” He reminded us of the time when the internet bubble burst and pointed out “That same zeal for breakthrough, game changing economics is back with a vengeance … And the title of his post? ‘Innovation loves a crisis’.”

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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 Just a couple of weeks ago, Thomas Friedman – the man who fired the imagination of world business with his book The World is Flat - wrote in his New York Times column: “We don’t just need a financial bailout; we need an ethical bailout. We need to re-establish the core balance between our markets, ethics, and regulations.”

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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River rafting is a popular sport these days and I must admit that I too am quite addicted to this stress-buster. But, during my last trip, the thrill of navigating the white water interspersed with the calm of floating downstream paled against excitement and determination of an army team that passed us by – they were rafting upstream!  

I could not help but feel inspired by that amazing sight. Today, as we navigate upstream in the current economic current, I can feel the same adrenalin rush.The Axon acquisition has been written about extensively. Coming at a time of an economic slowdown, understandably, questions are being raised about the merits of the largest acquisition by a firm in the Indian IT industry ever. 

As each of us renews our determination to achieve our goals within the downturn, what we see immediately ahead can best be described as a bend on the road. Most organizations are applying the brakes to navigate this bend, and I am sure there is merit in their reasons for doing so, keeping in mind their circumstances. However, for an aggressive company that is hungry for growth, there is opportunity beyond the bend and stepping on the accelerator at this time makes perfect business sense.      

A McKinsey research has revealed that among nearly 1,000 companies studied over 18 years, those that emerged successfully from the previous downturn of 1990-91 were those that did not back off from investing their cash reserves during a slowdown. They went right ahead with sensible acquisitions and stepped on the gas pedal to overtake their competitors.Making the right investments, increasing sales headcount, opening new offices, adding new services that in turn help shift gears to accelerate the pace of generating revenues – each of these is a part of the very strategy of emerging leaders as showcased in the McKinsey study. Short-term revenues are irrelevant, because these will change in proportion to what customers want to see immediately. But in the medium- to long-term, the answer to the problems our customers are facing and successfully partnering them to steer out of this turbulence together is what will lead to success. 

It goes without saying that a sound acquisition strategy is important while investing in today’s environment: Buying high quality assets, not low quality distress assets; hunting for complementary strengths; ensuring alignment in values with an in depth cultural diagnostic; basing the decision on future outlook, not current value; and crafting the bid carefully to get the best value out of the present circumstances, be it in the cost of acquisition or the bid strategy adopted. And having done so, ensuring post acquisition success with the right ‘Integration’ plan and process. 

I truly believe that this recession presents a very large opportunity for the Indian IT services industry as a whole. Yes, it will bring out the true colors of all the players. But if we can recognize the opportunities emerging within the darkness and be tough enough to chase them, it will change the very complexion of our industry when the sun rises again.  

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It is raining trouble outside…and at times like this, it is easy to forget about the rainbow that appears at the end of the rain. But difficult as it may be to think positive, that is just what we did at Unstructure, the unprecedented HCL Global meet, where 600 business leaders met in Florida, US, last month. Together, we hunted for the rainbow behind the dull shades of the business environment today – and we came away richer for it, with the ideas that we shared with each other, carrying back with us the seven colors of hope.

Before I share with you the exciting colors that we discovered, I’d like to post a simple question to you: When you look at the color white, what do you see? Do see just the color on the surface or do you look deeper to discover the vivid spectrum within.

Behind each bright white surface is a hidden promise - of colors just below the surface. It is for us to discover these and, in them, the vast potential they hold. And in a bleak business environment, it is these colors and the possibilities they embody that merit attention.

Each of the seven colors can represent one priority and remind us each day of these individual focus areas, even as they blend into a consolidated white merging into our overall strategy.

The very first priority in today’s environment should be our employees. Within HCL, our ‘Employee First’ philosophy recognizes that these are the people who hold the key to our collective success. In today’s environment where we are all seeking solutions to the global economic crisis, it is important to remember that it is the leaders who created this crisis. And the solution will be found when we look for it beyond the leaders, in innovative ideas emanating from our people at each level of the organizational pyramid. This priority is symbolized in the color Indigo.

The next priority today is aligning technology to business. Rather than offering technology solutions, our industry needs to focus on aligning with our customers’ business goals and offer a solution to their business problems . This is assigned the color blue.

The next is the color of harmony. With each and every one of us is agonized by the recent terrorizing events in Mumbai, it is top of mind for all of us now. I cannot over-emphasize the importance of this color in our world today. The color violet could represent harmony.

The call of the hour is for green focused companies. At HCL, we take our responsibility towards the environment and sustainable development very seriously. Besides our ongoing corporate initiatives, we even made a special effort at the Unstructure meet to ensure that our entire conference was carbon neutral, leaving no adverse ecological footprint behind. This priority, logically, is presented with the color green.

Unlike organizations with a unilateral focus on our cities and urban centres, we can learn a great deal from our villages, which are still home to 70 per cent of India. Rural innovation, impressive as it is to the outsider, is considered ‘business as usual’ in the villages. Our people there live each day with a firm belief that whenever there is a crisis, it can be overcome with innovation. We respect this with the color yellow, reminiscent of the bright yellow mustard in the green fields of the village.

 We can also learn great lessons from rural art, in particular the Maharashtrian art form of Warli painting. It has taught us the power to achieve creative – and sometimes complex - solutions while keeping the brush strokes of our efforts simple and straight. As we strive to find and take these art forms across India to the world, we attach a vivid orange to the beauty of this art.

And finally, we come to the color of celebration - a nice bright shade of red. I do believe that God has given us a great opportunity to celebrate. We must be thankful for what he has given us, rather than think about what we don’t have. There is no reason for us to stop celebrating because of a crisis. If you look back, there have been many a crises which have come and gone. When god gave us humans a mind to create crisis and complexity, he also gave us the mind to solve these crises. So remember, just across the bend, will be time again to celebrate. And in the end, it all comes together to white. The choice to unveil and enjoy the colors within is entirely yours. We made a good choice to discover the rainbow at Unstructure and carried it back with us in our hearts. I’d like to wish each one of you happy hunting as you look for and discover the joy of your rainbow. I have no doubt that if all of us collectively find these colors and carry with us the hope and promise of a rainbow, the world will be a better place tomorrow.

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All around us, the rules of engagement are being rewritten. Perhaps the term ‘rules’ itself is inappropriate in this age where Wikipedia, Linux, Facebook, Napster and eBay are new flag bearers. These live laboratories of the human mind are governed not so much by rules as by the power of collaborative thinking.

In a process-driven world, the quest for efficiency and productivity through best practices of the past often inhibited innovation and evolution. Yet, today an ostrich-like approach will not be able to withstand the winds of change. In order to find solutions to some of the unprecedented challenges being faced by business, we need to challenge the status quo and break mindsets with a fresh approach.

Outside our business silos, we see traditional structures of creation tumbling as an unstructured collective of individuals become the new custodians of power and choose, create and destroy according to their needs. This process of co-creation and innovation is an exciting new territory as it multiplies synergies and has a disruptive impact on existing thought process.

In business as well, there is a compelling need to challenge the status quo. And there is an important lesson here staring us in the face: a need to “unstructure” the highly strait-jacketed world of business and technology today.

The changing mechanics of the human thinking is intrinsically linked to the future of business – and in turn linked to the future of technology.

As an instance, for the large part today technology plays a key role in enabling businesses – rather than businesses defining how they wish to leverage technology. But the individual has power over technology – and when business and the individual come together – and define the future of technology – structures will be broken, and the true power and ubiquitous nature of technology will set individuals free to run powerful businesses.

We need to bring business, technology and people together to unlock thought by raising questions that reveal new perspectives.

Existing thought leadership platforms, however, tend to structure the thinking upfront stating the problem and a suggested solution. Instead, the need of the hour is free-flowing discussion on the interlinked future of business and technology. Thought leaders, who play the role of the ‘thought provoker’ rather than problem solvers; who become a catalyst that creates other thought leaders without a care for hierarchy.

This will help bring alive communities rather than organizations, stimulating thought with the power to transform technology and business. It is only through such unshackling of ideas that the world will emerge more creative, collaborative and empowered to deal with tomorrow.

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 I was listening the other day to Jeffrey Sonnenfeld of the Yale School of Management discuss leadership lessons from the financial meltdown with Wall Street Journal. Jeff likened the finger-pointing towards systemic failure to a man tripping while walking down the street and blaming the city for not paving the path properly.  As the dust settles, and the world turns its attention to the effectiveness of the bailout package instead, it might be worthwhile to move the spotlight from the regulators and go back to dig deeper and discover what really are the lessons here? They are powerful in their simplicity.  

·                    Courage to walk away: The very first learning that emerged from what is now being termed as a financial Armageddon was the need for courage: The courage to carve your own path and walk away from the herd. We in India were born with this lesson as we gained independence with ‘non-violence’ in an era of World Wars. In the US financial world, we saw Warren Buffet display the courage to walk away. Back in 2002, when companies began toying with exotic derivative instruments, Warren Buffet termed derivatives ‘financial weapons of mass destruction.’ Few listened to him then but today he stands out as the voice of sanity.  

·                    Save it for a rainy day: The second lesson is the forgotten power of savings. The ‘savings mentality’ has always been a hallmark of the Asian culture. India, for one, has always had a high rate of savings – a phenomenon that is getting eroded with a new culture of consumerism sweeping across our cities today. Interestingly, America, which is home to 5% of the world’s population, accounted for 30% of global production and 37% of global consumption during boom times! On an individual level in the recent crisis, the ninja loans reflect this mentality, but collectively it made the entire country vulnerable to risk. And there were those who saw the warning signals.

In 2005, when the times were good, economists Paul Volcker and Clyde Prestowitz, pointed out that America was vulnerable due to all the leveraging, and predicted that a financial crisis could soon hit its shores. This has come true and – be it at a macro level or a micro level - it highlights a forgotten lesson on the power of savings and that that we should leverage only to the extent we can afford to service our debt. Its time for a “back to basics” approach, old fashioned as it may seen. Save and plough back in good times, and not fritter liquid assets away. 

·                    Caution, compliance and governance: The role of the American regulatory bodies can be debated till kingdom come. If investors such as George Soros and Warren Buffet and economists such as Paul Volcker saw it coming, why couldn’t the American financial agencies? The fact is that caution, compliance and governance are self checks that business needs to bring back. What was so extraordinarily complex about the bubble that a few investors could see and regulators could not? But the danger here is to get over-dependent on regulatory direction and therefore over-regulation. Lesson here: We have no choice but to think on our feet, keep our radar scanning the environment constantly, and not follow the herd blindly despite what the regulators have allowed. 

·                    Look ahead - A lot has been written about the fall and a lot is yet to be written. However, it is time we stop reading and start looking ahead. The world will emerge from this crisis the same way it has from many such crisis before­­ - stronger. We need to look ahead as organizations and convert this crisis as an opportunity to transform the today for a better future. The people who look ahead will come out of this as winners, and I do hope more and more people start doing just that.  

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We can all see dark clouds gathering ahead. The western world is in the throes of a recession, there’s a financial crisis that has got its foot stuck in the door, regulators are battling solutions behind not-so-closed doors. Meanwhile people are losing jobs, capital is drying up, and just about everything has hit the fan.   While that appears to be a picture far removed from us, no country is an island today and India is no exception. The Indian economy has started to feel the beginnings of the pain, and by the looks of it, we need to be prepared for the tremors. 

So, what do we do when turbulent times begin to creep in through the back door?   I’d like to share a real life narrative here that shows us the power of conviction and persistence when you hit a bad patch.  At the time of the dotcom bust, e-commerce suddenly seemed like a bad word and investors were becoming increasingly disenchanted with the virtual world. Jeff Bezos, who began amazon.com from the garage of his home in 1994, was undeterred.     Having gone live in 1995 and reached the one million customer mark by 1997, he was sailing along when the dot-bust hit the internet. In 2000 amazon.com was forced to lay off 150 workers. The next year, it posted a loss of $1.4 billion. Many companies folded up, others changed tracks but Jeff Bezos believed in the power of the internet and did not buckle. He continued to expand the services provided on amazon.com. In fact, he stayed steadfast on the path of lowering costs even as profits dwindled simply because he believed that was the right way to go in the long run.  

I read about him warding questions on how he was taxing the patience of his investors and shareholders with conviction that he was doing the right thing even though it may not be evident then. In turn, to reflect his own personal commitment, he passed up any pay raise or bonus for several years in a row.  The rest is history. Amazon today is a case study in e-commerce success having achieved over $ 500 million in profits by 2004, nudging its way into the S&P 500.  

So, the question is that when bad times strike, should we take the punch or should we, like Jeff Bezos did, stick to our belief and fight back? 

Well, fight back we must. To begin with, we must stare at the situation square in the eye, assess the impending change, and then reinvent ourselves to fit the new picture. Having done so, we revaluate and then once again look ahead to ensure you stay ahead at the next step – and the next. This is a continuous cycle of change.

It is in times of a slowdown that smart engineers invest in skill development. Everybody can make hay while the sun shines, but it is in the darkness that the true stars shine out. There is always a silver lining to economic slowdown. As businesses slow down expansion and recruitment, it compels our youth to look at life as hard work – and hard work will provide us good CEO’s for tomorrow.  

But of course, while fighting a slowdown, we need to understand that times, be they good or bad, don’t last. They will come and go several times in one’s life and must be treated with equanimity. India is a great long-term story and the show has just begun. We will see villages prosper, towns build the infrastructure to become megacities, with each city the size of a European country. There is plenty of action ahead in India and so there must be plenty of fight left in us. So, let’s hang on here and hang in there, and look hard and square at the changing kaleidoscope, to pick the right strategy to speed up again. 

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I have collected over a million miles travelling between US, India and China and must be one of the many who has frequent miles on American, Air India and Air China. Sometimes I think this blog should have been titled as “A Perspective from Seat 3 B” as many of my thoughts emanate from the interesting conversations I have with fellow travelers in 3 A and 3 C. When combined with the thoughts that come from voracious reading (also mostly done when in transit!) and thought provoking discussions with some of the best minds in the world today, what emerges is a compelling stream of thought. In the last 20 yrs, travelling through various geographies, I have surprised myself by arriving at conclusions based on this stream of thought - I call them distant signals which will become drum beats fairly quickly!

The distant signals today indicate that the markets have moved Eastwards but the mindset is essentially Western. A disaster waiting to happen is evident on the ground as West meets East with over-engineered products, complex systems and armchair decision making. The East, as I see, is meeting West with entrepreneurship, ground breaking thoughts and cost breaking markets with migrating population happy to be on the ground to create market understanding.

This post is for those who believe in the West’s domination of the world and for some more enlightened souls who smell an opportunity in a “collaborative enterprise” between West and East. There is urgency for action here and now, because tomorrow, like the automobile industry has shown us, the East may not need the West. If the current inflow of capital in showcase institutions of the West from East is not an indicator of what is to follow, I don’t know what other proof one is waiting for. This post was written way before the cash started moving from East to West but I dare say I predicted it and predicted a lot more - this is just a beginning.

However the optimist that I am, I see only opportunities  huge opportunities in the marriage of ideas, intellect, spirit and markets in building global corporations of the size and scale the world has not seen so far. Imagine a corporation with management robustness of West and entrepreneurial enterprise of East, capital markets of West and cost consciousness of East , engineering innovation of West and development excellence of East - imagine the Blue ocean opportunity for creating global operations in the world of ever changing realities where the past has no relevance for future.

The critical question is will it happen as a collaboration or transfer of power. Well if I could tell you that I would predict the future, which I can’t. However I will end with a note of caution - we do know that West can’t do it alone-let us not quickly assume that East can.

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Did you watch the US Open this week? Just when he was being written off, Roger Federer came back convincingly to win the Open on Monday in New York in three straight sets. The list of doubters had been getting longer. Federer had lost the first three Grand Slam events in 2008. And yet, this week he set all speculation about his dwindling abilities to rest.  (more…)

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A fellow participant at the MLabs conference recently shared a case on the campaign to save 100,000 Lives by Institute for Healthcare Improvements. Intrigued by the target number (being a business leader that attracts the most) I set out to read how this ambitious & bold target of saving them in 18 month’s time was achieved.

Many things stood out as I continued to read that I could relate to. The first point was their mission “to transform the quality of health care and health outcomes globally”. Clearly evident is the fact that some one or in this case the healthcare community working on this campaign was not OK with the status quo. They found it unacceptable and were willing to bring about a change or alter the status. It was easy to draw a parallel to our business or organization setup and the transformation journey we began in 2005, when some of us raised concern over “what is so” right now and how it is not good enough. And “catalysts” to initiate and execute a change were born. (more…)

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