Enigma Solution

Last month I dropped in at a friends manufacturing plant in Pune recently. He was both happy and very busy, and why not? They were doubling sales every two years. He and his family reflected visible aspects of the India growth story. I was happy for him. We were having a cup of tea when a senior member of his team walked into the cabin. I was surprised to see that the gentleman was an old colleague of mine. We chatted briefly about things in the industry and also about former colleagues etc. I knew him to be a very good engineer and manager. During his tenure with my company we had undertaken many path breaking initiatives in technology and management. I asked him if he was still undertaking industry benchmarking studies like he had when he worked for us and which had been extremely useful for us. My friend immediately butted in and retorted; "we have a policy here not to concern ourselves with others, we are preoccupied with our own internal issues." I was aghast ...

During my various assignments I observe a worrying theme; Successful people become rigid and adopt the same style and approach irrespective of the changing environment. Success makes them highly inflexible. When changes occur in the business environment they are unable to change their style and approach They begin to believe that all they have to do is work harder, however this does not always produce satisfactory results. Result oriented leaders do their homework and often try to change their approach until they get it right. Adopting suitable technology can often make the crucial difference. The best results normally come when there is a blend of technology coupled with good management practices. Take the case of The Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD). The commissioners suspected inflation of the payroll by the addition of large number of fictitious employees. This was confirmed by published reports from The anti-corruption branch (ACB) of Delhi government which has investigated ma...