• PAGE ONE
• INDEX
• HOME

A sage counsel

*The Future Manager

A Value Builder For Tomorrow's Organisation

By Satish Khanna

Publishers: Tata McGraw-Hill

Price: Not mentioned

DISCOURSE is the cornerstone of Indian civilisation. Enshrined in the guru-sishya parampara, it is perhaps the single-most effective archive of the country's heritage. The Bhagavad Gita, Ramayana and Mahabharata, along with treatises on Ayurveda and Sidd ha, have perpetuated their timeless legacies by this means. Corporate India, too, has sat up to the relevance of its cultural roots through approaches such as Vedic management and the Vedanta-inspired business approach.

The Indian business fraternity is flooded with management literature based on insights derived from corporate cultures other than our own. And, all too often, in that information overflow, the realities of the Indian marketplace get i nundated. Thus, it is refreshing to come across publications that are rooted in the Indian ethos. The Future Manager is a shining example. The author is currently Group President in the Lupin Group of Companies at Mumbai.

The book imaginatively chronicles the saga of Shaits Annah -- a business visionary who is journeying to the industrial Indian heartland to say his good-byes to an enterprise he has nurtured. As it turns out, that journey will be the last of the ma ny he has undertaken over the years. And, at the factory, hundreds of his proteges are shell-shocked. Eventually, they are made to realise that the parting is inevitable.

The saddened staff request a final opportunity to benefit from his accumulated wisdom. And the discourse that follows makes up the bulk of the book. Comprising five parts, the book is structured around questions relating to the areas of cha nge, the winning edge, thinking differently, working together and, finally, the individual and the corporation.

Shorn of academese, jargon, theories or complex management models, the book is primarily crafted for the much-overlooked middle management -- thousands of professionals given the onerous task of translating corporate vision at the grassroot s level. Professionals located at company plants and projects far away from company headquarters, would find the book especially relevant.

The first part of the book revolves around the contentious issues of globalisation and liberalisation -- and the mindsets that should see Corporate India through this turbulent phase. Setting the tone for the book, Annah concludes the section with an impassioned plea for the creation and maintenance of business ethic. Clubbed with environmental concern, they form the core of good business and are crucial to the company's long-term growth, he says.

The second part focuses on the emergence of, what the author terms, `the new Indian corporation'. Here, speed, velocity and the strategic plan are the launchpads of growth for the revitalised Indian corporate. Annah calls for a ``mother ocratic'' approach in Indian industry, where the entrepreneur ``loosens the reins of the enterprise to speed up its momentum of growth'' (food for thought for the patriarchs of Indian Industry!).

Part Three takes its cue from the corporate injunction of Apple Computer: Think different. And, thinking differently seems to hold the key to corporate growth driven by proactive thinking. In Annah's words: ``The passion for excellence and the driv ing force for achievement emerge from dreaming. Those who do or achieve the most are also the ones who dream the most. Everything that we consider spectacular today -- whether it be a historical monument built thousands of years ago, a scientifi c invention which changed the lifestyle of an entire civilisation or a mega-business empire worth trillions of dollars -- began as a spark that grew into a dream in somebody's mind.''

To illustrate his point, using insight and wit, Annah spotlights an initiative of the visionary Jamshedji Tata, at the turn of the century, in a wilderness that would become known to the world as Jamshedpur: ``In 1903, one British financier thought th is to be so ridiculous that he said that he would eat every pound of steel that came out of there. Years later in 1937 on a visit to India, the same man ate his words (though not the steel!) when the Jamshedpur steel plant had become the 12th lar gest in the world. He said ruefully, `I can see now that my appetite in the old days must have been enormous.'''

Part Four rolls up its sleeves and sets to work on the issue of working together. Here we are introduced to the overall personality types that generally make up a team. In addition, there is the other dichotomy of the business wor ld: the generalists and the specialists. To both these categories of professionals, Annah recommends a career guide encompassed in the abbreviation VSOP -- variety, speciality, originality and personality.

The book winds up with a discourse on the individual and the corporation. As a metaphor for our times, Annah draws parallels between a management professional and a computer. He likens the soul to the computer chip, the body to the hardware and acquired knowledge as software. The three elements must co-exist in synchronicity for the management professional's career to thrive. As the curtains fall on this corporate guru's discourse, the Future Manager leaves the reader with 20 ins ights on being the complete corporate person. These, then, are the parting gift of the master to his followers -- and to the reader.

This is one of the most refreshing management books I have read in a long time. The only off-side is the book's tendency to moralise at times. That apart, it makes for insight-filled reading. I scarcely need say that Shaits Annah is an an agram of the author's name. Annah is the print avatar born of the author's experience in the pharmaceutical and allied chemical industries, spanning two-and-a-half decades. The quintessential global business traveller, Satish Khanna has drawn f rom his corporate experience in over 50 countries. At the end of the book, one residual thought remained. The discourse, in its 21st-century avatar, is alive and well in Corporate India.

Joseph Fernandez