Is the transformation programme working?

Imagine you are a shareholder of a company, whose leaders criticise predecessors for every malaise & blame media for negative reportage. Company’s results are not glamorous. Would you vote for change?
Image used for representational purpose only. EXPRESS ILLUSTRATION
Image used for representational purpose only. EXPRESS ILLUSTRATION

There are several aspects of organisational transformation while disturbing the status quo and building business institutions. Change efforts are somewhat akin to raising a family. The parents are never quite certain whether things are working the way they had planned, and it appears to be a permanent work-in-progress. Whether in a company or a country, this is true—from an inside as well as an outside perspective. One is not sure because they are not dealing with rational inputs and predictable outcomes, but with human responses to an input with unpredictable outcomes.

Imagine you are a citizen of a great democracy, or, more appropriately, the shareholder of a long-standing company. For about seven years, a charismatic CEO and his leadership team have implemented their transformation programme, exuding confidence, panache and bravado, bordering on arrogance. The earlier leaders came from either a family-managed company or a multinational corporation. The current team prides itself on being culturally home-grown and solidly professional. The absence of influence from the West or a family is touted as an asset, further embellished through gorgeous national sartorial displays in preference to Western business suits.

After the passage of several years, the company’s results are not as glamorous or appealing as the leadership team would like investors to believe. Doubts have arisen about whether the new culture being embedded is toxic and damaging to the traditional values of the reputed company. Shareholders are concerned about leadership. What are the ominous signals and symptoms that reveal an undesirable toxicity in the organisation? Here is a narrative that exemplifies the situation picturesquely as compared to a table of checklist points.

The current leadership team belongs to a particular School of Thought (SoT). Culturally, the SoT way of thinking and behaving is different from that of the family business or western MNC. This SoT produces similar-thinking alumni with a shared management ideology. The leader’s charismatic and magnetic personality is a unifying point for those working in the company. While explaining the results, the leader and his team come through in some unusual but familiar ways.

Leaders blame predecessors for every malaise: For seven years, predecessors became regular punching bags for the top team. If only the predecessor had not left the company in such a weak and fragile condition; if only they had invested more in human capital and training; if only they had been more decisive in dealing with difficult situations; if only the predecessors had not been so docile while confronting domestic and global competition; if only they had adopted a more company-centric strategy. The list is endless. If all, or at least most of the problems, had been resolved earlier, the company would not be atoning for the multiple, grievous errors of the past. It would today be in a much stronger position on almost all parameters.

The new leaders make tall promises, yet there are doubts on delivery: They offer cogent reasons for repeatedly and continuously missing targets. According to the contemporary leadership, the leaders’ senior operating colleagues are in stasis, acting with an outmoded mindset; accounts and data of the past several years need correction and restatement to mirror the current positive profit performance more accurately; competitors are hitting below the belt with unsavoury moves never witnessed before. Domestic media revel in negative reportage with no analysis on the positive actions taken and in place. The foreign press, no admirers of this fast-progressing and immensely successful company, hammer the firm in their overseas coverage. The fantastic results being achieved all the time are ignored. There is a ceaseless assault from once-in-a-century disasters caused by the global economy.

The top team is articulate, yet belligerent and pugnacious: They are excellent communicators and speakers. Being alumni from the same SoT, they are all built in a vituperative mould. The chiefs who head finance, administration, human resources and public relations speak in a harsh and combative manner. They defend by attacking past leaders. This new leadership brooks little criticism. Even their media spokespersons defend the company by viciously attacking competitors.

Shareholders and the public cannot comprehend the leadership’s ‘brilliant, newfangled’ ideas: The company periodically announces dramatic schemes to benefit stakeholders and owners. But after months of debate and protestations played out in corporate courts and media, the leadership withdraws several proposals. According to the leaders’ logic, the forward-thinking proposals and actions to benefit shareholders had not been understood in the proper context. The culprits: misinformation campaigns by competitors and hostile media.

Days of wine and roses are ahead, though the better future takes time: When the current leaders were selected seven years ago, they assured the company would soon enter a golden future. After five years, they desired that the board and shareholders renew their employment contracts. They expressed confidence that magical times await the company in the next five years or even sooner. Now it appears that more than a decade is required for the change to manifest itself. The new corporate leaders proclaim—days of wine and roses are just one or two bends away.

If you were a shareholder of this company, how would you view their transformation efforts? Is the leadership acting with empathy and sensitivity for its constituents? Do such leaders evoke trust? Above all, do you regard them as a self-obsessed and harmful bunch and vote for change, even though a new uncertainty would arise with a different and unknown leadership?

Best-selling author and corporate advisor

(The author was Director, Tata Sons and Vice Chairman, Hindustan Unilever. His latest book, Pivots For Career Success: Unleashing People Power, has just been published)

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