Lead change process personally - Irani

By Our Special Correspondent

CHENNAI, AUG. 1. ``Change when you are still strong and when change appears unnecessary - do not wait for the day when you have no option but to change''.

This is one of the tips that Dr. J. J. Irani, Director, Tata Steel, gives to CEOs aspiring to transform their organisations into learning companies and achievers of excellence, as Tisco has in fact done in the past decade.

As one who headed the quality drive and the Malcolm Baldridge programme in Tata Steel, Dr. Irani, who, along with his company bagged the CII-Exim Bank Award for Business Excellence for 2000, shares his insights acquired in the journey towards transforming one of India's oldest ``old economy'' companies into the world's most competitive steel producer and the only steel plant in the world with ISO-14000 certification.

The first ``mantra'' that Dr. Irani gives to CEOs is to ``lead the change process personally. This responsibility cannot be delegated". Though it was easy to give sanctions and allocate budgets, the personal involvement and time of the CEO in the change process and quality drive was essential, he said, making a presentation on ``Tata Steel - Institutionalising Excellence", under the auspices of the CII today as part of the mandate of the CII-Exim Bank Award to oblige award winners to deliver public lectures on their experiences.

Detailing how Tata Steel used its traditions of bipartism, structured management-employee councils at various levels, employee empowerment and social awareness and responsibility to implement programmes of modernisation, cost reduction, higher productivity and rightsizing of workforce, Dr. Irani said CEOs should be the ``role model" and must be prepared to be the first to change. They should create ``endless opportunities" for two- way communication with internal and external customers and create a sense of urgency, but not panic, in the organisation.

``Set up a small hand-picked group to drive change in the organisation. Expose them to training programmes. Communicate the importance of this group. Make membership of the group attractive and coveted and give them freedom to perform", he suggested. He emphasised the need to measure customer service and to implement a plan to delight the customer by exceeding his expectations.

Of course, Tata Steel's achievement is all the more creditable, considering that its transformation came about from an era of high import tariffs, cost-plus price fixing at the instance of the government and government-directed target markets, to one of intensive internal and external competition. What about the future?

According to Dr. Irani, the focus of Tata Steel will be on growth strategies and new markets, like titanium (project in Tamil Nadu), chrome, bearings and e-commerce and achieving a still higher score on the CII-Exim score band.

But the most important task, he said, would be ``modernisation of the mindset" of the organisation with a performance ethic programme (PEP) for executives which would involve some downsizing of the management cadre and creating knowledge- management systems.

Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

Section  : Business
Previous : New norms allow nidhi cos. to raise deposits
Next     : Haldia Petro commences production