Inspiration From Harvard

What could be common between Lou Gerstner and Rahul Bajaj?

Having worked at McKinsey and American Express before becoming the Chairman and

CEO of RJR Nabisco, Lou Gerstner became the first outsider ever to be hired as

CEO of IBM in April 1993-because the board was convinced that Big Blue's

turnaround would be a leadership challenge not a technical one. And Rahul Bajaj

has been the driving force behind the globally known two-wheeler manufacturer

Bajaj Auto for over four decades and a recognized leader of the Indian

manufacturing sector, the CII and the World Economic Forum. Both these legendary

figures were among the five luminaries on whom the Alumni Achievement Award of

the Harvard Business School was conferred in September 2005.

Following a simple citation and Award presentation that

characterises the Harvard way of excellence-sans the pomp and pageantry-former

CEO of Meditronic and now a Harvard Professor, Bill George, conducted a panel

discussion complete with an American Football case study that enthralled the

thousand strong audience of the Harvard academic community. And brought out in

more ways than one the similarity in value systems and yet the difference in

perspective that corporate chieftains from all over the world bring to the

table.

Bajaj's simple advice to the ambitious Harvard student

community was to focus on Integrity, Courage and Common Sense to succeed in the

corporate world. And Gerstner's pearls of wisdom to young managers: To roll up

their sleeves and contribute to problem analysis and solution finding rather

than just becoming approvers. And the words of advice to CEOs as well to

articulate expected leadership skills and measures to their teams so that they

know what they have to strive to achieve would be important for the new

entrepreneurs who are setting out to build world beating IT companies out of

India.

Bajaj spoke of altruism, and that perception is sometimes as

important as the reality and while the pursuits may shun brand building and

marketing, one has to only look at the successful positioning of Infy in the

eyes of all their stakeholders to realize the value of positioning. Gerstner

stressed on the need to get away from the traditional hierarchical organizations

to a more collegial organization structure to facilitate free flow of

information and sharing of expertise. Bajaj's rebuttal to one of the panelists'

appeal of consistency: "even a donkey can be consistent", and that

true winners need to be innovative, was very appropriate.

It is also heartening to see Harvard Business School, in its

prestigious Advanced Management Program (AMP), covering so much of India-its

economic liberalization process, the pulls and pushes of politics on the

economic fundamentals of the country and, most importantly, significant case

studies like the Toyota Production System Factory approach to the Software

Development process that Wipro has adopted. For an audience of global CEOs and

CEOs-to-be, this is a welcome introduction to the new ways of getting technology

developed through offshore outsourcing and obviously a shot in the arm for the

reputation of our industry. We can all celebrate the fact that India has

arrived, not just in the consideration set of Fortune 500 CEOs and CIOs but also

in the hallowed halls of academia, where new generations of global leaders are

being prepared to meet the challenges of a global business environment!

Finally, what is common between Rahul Bajaj and Ratan Tata-apart

from both being alumni of the Harvard Business School? Bajaj was one of the

early MBA graduates while Tata completed an AMP at HBS; both are the only

Indians to have received the Alumni Achievement Award. Will the next be our

Finance Minister Chidambaram, or another member of the business fraternity? Lets

hope to see that happen soon!