Multi-tasking Manager

A few months ago, I was pleasantly surprised to see four young women featured

as success stories in the big bad world of IT. It was a surprise because we

rarely pause to recognize the immense contribution women have made to this

industry, despite the CEO of almost every Top 200 company being male. The

article appealed to me even more because three of the four women profiled–Saadia

Lobo, corporate training head at SAP (Germany), Aruna Jayanthi, software chief

at Cap Gemini Ernst & Young India, and Lydia Lobo, CTO of Aptech, had worked

with me at some stage of their careers.

Having worked with young people in their 20s and 30s for over a decade, I can

confidently say that when it comes to choosing between two people equally

qualified and meritorious, I would choose the woman every time! It is difficult

to pinpoint the exact reasons for this–maybe it is because women use the right

combination of the right and left sides of the brain, they have much more

resilience and a ‘never say die’ attitude when confronted with knotty

problems at work.

The recent superhit movie Bend it Like Beckham makes a telling point when, in

a conversation, the protagonist has with her sister, she is advised to choose

Indian men because "they have even learnt to cook and help with washing the

dishes." What right do we men have to complain about any woman in the

workplace when we so grossly neglect the sharing of responsibilities at home?

Men who do their fair share at home inevitably tend to be better in managing

projects at work too.

And develop the sensitivity to people and situations that make women superior

in dealing with clients as well as colleagues in most software organizations.

Having sung paeans of praise for the stronger sex, let us also address the

issue of why there seems to be a last mile problem in the race to the CEO’s

chair for most women. With the exception of Lynette Saldanah (Datacraft), Uma

Ganesh (Zee), Revathi Kasturi (Wipro/Tarang), and maybe a few others, we have

not seen women taking over the reins of IT companies in India. The Carly

Fiorinas of the world have shown that bold decision-making and sticking to their

guns in the face of adversity need by no means be the exclusive capability of

the ‘big boys’. One theory I have is that women fall short in dealing with

ambiguity and the veneer of politics that inevitably seeps its way at the very

top echelons of management and the board room. And this is not to say that

politics cannot be harnessed to good effect –in fact in the various forms of

organizations mentioned by Minzberg , celebrated author and professor of McGill

University, the political organization is discussed as a very legitimate form.

Women tend to prefer the straight and narrow path in dealing with subordinates

as well as peers in senior management and are unable to find their way to smart

political maneuverings that are inevitable to getting things done at the very

top of the organization pyramid.

Managing IT organizations is really no different from heading Old Economy

firms. The ‘Five F’ framework, which is my own personal favorite mantra for

change–fast in spotting and exploiting new technologies and business

opportunities, focused in the way the entire team sets and achieves goals,

flexible in adjusting to emerging business trends, friendly and fun as a culture

for performance within the organization, still remains the best way to achieve

corporate turnarounds as well as accelerating growth and profitability. Can

women handle all these challenges as well as men?

Certainly, just give them a chance!

Ganesh Natarajan



The author is the global CEO of Zensar Technologies