Making India Great Again
Gopalakrishnan and Ranjan Banerjee*
*(Gopal is an author and business commentator, who served Lever and Tata during his fifty-year career. Ranjan is Dean of Mumbai’s BITS School of Management (BITSoM) and former Dean of SPJIMR (SP Jain Institute of Management)
There are many recent stories of leaders of Indian origin making it to the top of global institutions. From Jayashree Ullal at Arista, Sonia Syngal at Old Navy , Leena Nair at Chanel, to the recent news of Ajay Banga being nominated by Joe Biden as President of the World Bank, there has been much to celebrate. Overseas Indians seem to be gaining recognition in several fields—management, academics, global institutions, and political governance. What could be the factors contributing to this now discernible trend?
In 2018, we had co-authored a book–The Made-in-India Manager, published by Hachette India. We had defined ‘Made in India’ as people who had spent their most formative years in India (typically up to college or under-graduate level). While our book spoke specifically of managers in global corporations, the qualities we describe apply equally well to leadership in academics and public service. It is not difficult to separately make a case for the made in India doctor. Given the increasing gender diversity in our leading educational institutions, it is not difficult to see that we will see more women leaders of Indian origin making it to a global stage in the years to come.
Much-celebrated leaders like Satya Nadella, Shantanu Narayen, Arvind Krishna, and Indira Nooyi, belong in this category. We could not this pin down to a single distinctive trait of Indian-origin managers. Rather, it was the coming together of factors that created ‘a secret sauce’. Borrowing from biology and systems theory, we identified this as an emergent phenomenon, a quality which emerged from multiple factors coming together in an interesting way.
- Growing up in a crushingly competitive, highly aspirational environment: from birth certificate to death certificate, from school admission to IIT/IIM admission, living in India presents huge challenges. Only the persistent succeed. The statistics of how many compete for a seat at an IIT, IIM, SBI probationer are numbing. There are instances of bright students who could not secure a seat in an IIT, but got into Cornell or Princeton! This implies that difficult odds do not faze these leaders, as they are lesser than challenges already faced and overcome.
- Exposure to extraordinary setbacks that accelerate personal learning: : Commuting in chaotic circumstances, inadequate privacy and space to study at home, poor sports and library facilities and the crushing burden of exams. Every student faces early setbacks like inadequate marks, a lost college admission or limited job choice. This implies that ambiguity and setbacks are merely seen as challenges to be overcome. In a world which is frequently characterized as VUCA, this can be rather valuable.
- The ability to work hard along with intuitive adaptability and creativity: Even if grudgingly, employers admit to the exceptional hard work put in by Indians. Abraham Pinkusewitz, head of a diamond trading company in Antwerp is reported to have said, “Business is important for Jews, but we cannot pursue it with the single-mindedness of Indians.” Indian managers have been exposed to unstructured situations early in life, and these help them to learn special skills.
- The ability to think in English: In an international environment, many managers think in their language, but act in English. Many Indians can ‘think and act in English’.
These factors, constituting the emergence principle, were aptly summed up by the late CK Prahalad, who used to say, “Growing up in India is an extraordinary preparation for management.”
When our book was published five years ago, the review in the London Times was a bit scathing. The reviewer was a person of Indian origin, but not ‘Made in India.’ He felt that we had made much about a few stray cases. If Indian managers were that good, then why could they not manage their national business economy better? It was a fair question, but the answer is unravelling as the following facts suggest.
The size of the Indian economy and the size of the Indian stock market are finding a place in the top five in the world. The fact is that Indians are no geniuses, just as former British and American managers were no geniuses. They work hard and persistently in a particular environment, which allows their actions to cumulatively compound. Improving a few percentage points of productivity each year, after many years, the cumulative effect looks dramatic. As the century of Indian independence approaches, it is, perhaps, a case of things coming full circle. Remember, it would merely restore India in the league of countries to where it was in the 1800s!
