I have been and I am a big fan of Mr.
Narendra Modi ever since his rise on the Indian horizon. Just a fortnight back,
he has taken oath of Gujarat Chief Minister for the fourth time in a row, not a
small feat to achieve by anyone anywhere. The development of Gujarat during his
tenure has been phenomenal. He has transformed his state to so business friendly
that most corporate honchos of India and even abroad drool to setup their plants/
units in Gujarat.
Recently, he was invited by Delhi based
Shri Ram College of Commerce (SRCC) to deliver a lecture to the college
youth. The invitation to Mr. Modi was not
decided by the college authorities by choice, but rather through a ballot process
where students had to pick one name out of 5 possible names. One name was of
Mr. Modi and the 4 names were of others including Congress Yuvraj Mr. Rahul
Gandhi. Because Mr. Modi received maximum votes, he was invited as the speaker
by the college authorities. Mr. Modi being chosen above Yuvraj Rahul Gandhi is
also noteworthy considering that both State and Central Governments in Delhi
are of Congress.
His talk of ~60 minutes was completely mesmerizing.
When I started playing it on YouTube, my plan was to just watch the glimpses by
skipping the portions of the video, but I could not do that. The speech both in
terms of contents and style was so intense, lively, connecting, interesting and
captivating that I watched the video in its entirety. I am describing some of his musings with
connection to corporate style.
Unique
and Out of Box thinking
He held a glass of water in his hand which
was half full and explained as to how two categories of people perceive that
differently. He said the people with optimistic thought process perceive the
glass half full and the people with pessimistic thought process perceive glass
half empty. Modi Ji propagated his own and third creative interpretation saying
that neither the glass as half full, nor the glass as half empty. Instead it
was completely full, half with water and half with air.
In corporations, the great leaders perceive
and visualize things in non traditional manner, an out of box thinking.
Business
Diversification
Modi Ji, mentioned that his growth model of
Gujarat was not based on just a single sector. Rather, it was based on three
growth sectors; Agriculture sector,
Industrial sector and Service sector. This 3 pronged model was implemented to
ensure that weakness in any sector is compensated by the strength of the other
sectors. This is a classic example of business diversification.
Most top successful companies follow the same
diversification mode. The American conglomerates GE and Fidelity Investments and
Indian conglomerate Reliance, Airtel, ITC are some great examples of
diversified corporations.
Branding
He took an example that a label “Made in
Japan” inherently means quality. The quality centric perception that Japan has
created around the world has not come out by accident. Rather, it is years of hard
work by the Japanese people. Similarly
he cited the example of South Korea as to how that country used the Seoul
Olympic of 1988 to create its mark on the world stage. Today, South Korea has a
well established brand. He also reminded the audience as to how we squandered
the opportunity we had in the form of CWG for creating an India brand. What
happened as a result of CWG is well known to all of us, a disaster. He called
upon the youth to create a “Brand India”.
Most successful corporations’ modern
success is attributed to the brand they have created over the years through
sheer hard work. The “Intel Inside” by Intel or “We sell for less” by Walmart
and Indian brand “Tata” are some examples.
Business Expansion
He took an example as to how his administration
is working on tapping new development areas of economy. He has constituted a
team to go over all the things that a human being needs in life and come up
with a comprehensive list. The team came up with close to 1,000 things that a
human needs. Based on this list, his team is working on creating new focus
areas for skill development which will be used to open new frontiers of the
economic development.
Most successful businesses keep looking for
new growth areas. Apple did not stop at iPod which was probably its first mass
product. It went on to create a market for iPad, which did not exist to begin
with.
Pride
in work
Modi Ji cited an example of his meeting with Taiwanese
leaders during his visit , where he was
asked if India is still a country of snake charmers. His response , kind of
unique and was well thought out, said that India has moved on from a country of
“snake charmers” to country of “mouse charmers”, an obvious reference to
India’s growing prowess in the IT sector.
He took another example of then President Mr.
Bill Clinton visiting one of the villages in Rajasthan where many of the women,
while covering their faces with the veil, were using computers for their small
businesses. A young man in a very assertive manner approached Mr. Clinton to
ask/say something. Many of the village leaders who were present there, managing
Clinton’s visit got worried that the young man might ask for either visa, or job
or even money. But what the young man asked was totally unexpected. The young
man firmly looked into Clinton’s eyes and asked if Clinton still thinks if
India was a backward country. Clinton was forced to say, “No, it is not”.
Most successful corporations create a sense
of pride in their employees. It is not just the money that attracts the skill.
It’s the larger purpose of the organization and how the corporation is able to
make connections with its employees to create a sense of pride which glues its
employees together to achieve larger goals.
Empowerment
Modi Ji cited an example of a person who
showed up once to meet him, who did not impress Modi Ji at all in his brief
meeting, but later went on to set up his business in record 18 months time, which
today supplies coaches to Delhi Metro. This was due to the empowerment Modi Ji has done at the district level , Tehsil level
and even block level.
The successful companies empower their
employees in taking risks. It’s the risk taking ability of the individuals
fostered by the corporations’ top
management’s commitment to risk taking , that results into innovations which
drive future value creation and growth.
Value
Creation
Modi took an example of cotton production
in Gujarat which stood at 23 Lakh bells in 2001, and which now stands at 1
crore 23 lakh bells. This is more than 5 fold increase and is something to be
proud about. In some ways, it is tremendous value creation through productivity
increase. But Modi Ji’s version of value
creation is his ambitious 5 F’s plan where cotton produced in Farm will be converted to Fiber which in turn will be converted
to Fabric which in turn will be
converted to Fashionable clothes
which finally will be exported to Foreign
markets.
This is an example of value creation that successful
corporations follow. Many companies in our IT sector which were initially
exporting human skills (body shopping) have moved on to create products.
On a different note, we export our iron
ores to China, why? I think this should stop now. We should rather export more
finished products made out of iron.
Packaging
Modi Ji told how the market of Indian Medicine
did not pickup till the packaging was made attractive. A commission named
“Hathi Commission” was setup by Pt Jawarhar Nehru more than half century back, recommended
better packaging for Indian medicines. Modi
Ji demanded the packaging needs to be right along with good product quality. He
mentioned how the tourism industry of Gujarat has grown tremendously by focused
campaign by making great Mr. Amitabh Bachchan as the Brand Ambassador of Gujarat.
Most corporations strive to create
attractive packaging after studying the consumer psyche to increase the selling
chances for their products.
Socially
Responsible
All over our country, the water level in
earth is going down at an alarming level. Gujarat was no exception due to its
climatic conditions. Modi mentioned in his speech that he has constructed over 50,000
small water bodies all over the state to store water. That has resulted into
the ground water level in Gujarat to come up in last 10 years as against most
part of our country where water level has gone down drastically.
These days, many corporations are adopting
social responsibility and striving hard to balance growth , environment and
society.
Goal
oriented Offsite
Modi Ji mentioned as to how his team of advisors
meet under the umbrella of 2 months event called “Krishi Mahotsava”, during the month of May and June when the temperature
outside is scorching 44 degree celcius.The team focuses on finding new and
innovative ways of agriculture development. He mentioned that Gujarat maintains
the health card for the soil and that soil health card is used for picking the
correct fertilizers and plantations.
Most successful corporations conduct goal oriented
off sites to brainstorm and generate the strategy for the future action plan.
Global
Reach
Modi Ji cited examples of presence of
products made in Gujarat in foreign countries. He has examples of export of
Okra ( Bhindi) to Europe, Milk to Singapore, Tomato to Afghanistan and many
other parts of the world. He also mentioned that the global summit of Gujarat
was attended by the leaders of 121 countries representing more than 50% of the
world GDP.
Most corporations today have global thinking
in their long term plans.
Eloquence
Like any other corporate leader, he threw
many keywords. Some are given below. These keywords serve a great purpose in
effective communication and help in keeping its impact long lasting.
In one of my company’s offsite, a speaker
from GE cited the phrase EEE ( Energy, Edge and Execution) which I still
remember, even 3 years later and I can vividly
connect to what he meant by each E.
Some of Modi Ji’s citations are below.
P2G2
- Pro People Good Governance ( On
Su-Raj means good governance which is pro people)
5 F’s – Farm to Fiber to Fabric to Fashion
to Foreign
3 S’s – Skill, Scale and Speed ( three
things needed to move forward )
Google Guru - Our one stop place for finding anything we
need
My
Conclusion
India in last few years has gone thru
either non governance or extremely turbulent governance. The current government
of UPA-II is more dud and non-functional then its previous version UPA-I. Our
Prime Minister Mr. Man Mohan Singh has
transformed himself into Mr. Mauni Mohan Singh. Both current home Minister
Shinde and previous home minister Chidambaram keep attacking the identity and ethos
of a large section of people. I am not sure whose interest they represent. Our country is big country with 1.2 billion
people having 65% population below 35 years of age. The country needs a leader
who can lead such a large nation to put India back in the forefront of nations
of the world, a leader who can channelize the energy of youth for productive
and constructive use. That leader can be no one except Mr. Modi. India strongly
and desperately needs Mr. Modi as its Prime Minister.
- Devendra Singh
