Stop Don't Go There: Mistakes Made by Top Leaders

STOP! Don’t Go There!

Mistakes Made by Top Leaders

STOP! Don’t Go There!

Mistakes Made by Top Leaders

By Parveen Prasad

First published in India 2018

© 2018 by Parveen Prasad

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or

transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including

photocopying, recording, or any information storage or retrieval system, without prior

permission in writing from the publishers.

No responsibility for loss caused to any individual or organization acting on or

refraining from action as a result of the material in this publication can be

accepted by Bloomsbury or the author.

The content of this book is the sole expression and opinion of its author, and

not of the publisher. The publisher in no manner is liable for any opinion or views

expressed by the author. While best efforts have been made in preparing this

book, the publisher makes no representations or warranties of any kind and

assumes no liabilities of any kind with respect to the accuracy or completeness

of the content and specifically disclaims any implied warranties of

merchantability or fitness of use for a particular purpose.

The publisher believes that the content of this book does not violate any

existing copyright/intellectual property of others in any manner whatsoever.

However, in case any source has not been duly attributed, the publisher may

be notified in writing for necessary action.

BLOOMSBURY and the Diana logo are trademarks of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc

E-ISBN 978 93 86826 89 3

2 4 6 8 10 9 7 5 3 1

Bloomsbury Publishing India Pvt. Ltd

Second Floor, LSC Building No.4

DDA Complex, Pocket C – 6 & 7, Vasant Kunj

New Delhi 110070

www.bloomsbury.com

Created by Manipal Digital Systems

To find out more about our authors and books visit www.bloomsbury.com.

Here you will find extracts, author interviews, details of forthcoming

events and the option to sign up for our newsletters.

1. Dr. Parveen has shared her expertise on Leaders and Leadership through several interviews. Stop! Don’t Go There!! is a compelling compilation of diverse lessons learnt by leaders. It offers a refreshing approach to mistakes in organizations.

Vikas Chadha

President, Honeywell India

2In some ways, this book is a game changer. The structure of values, mistakes and learning shapes a high order leadership model.

D.D.Mishra,

Research Director, Gartner

3. The CEOs profiled in this book offer leadership lessons to leaders at all levels. These ideas will certainly help the Generation Y to become better CEOs.

This well researched book describes how 30 CEOs lead and learn lessons for success in tomorrow’s corporate world.

Kishor Karnataki, ex MD,

Minda VAST, ex MD,

Minda Valeo, Director, MACJ

4. Stop! Don’t Go There!, written by Dr. Parveen Prasad, elaborates beautifully the perspectives, the insights, the mistakes and the lessons learnt from the errors of these very situations and experiences. It is a wonderful eye-opener for all future entrepreneurs and budding managers, for leaders in all spheres and areas of functions and life. I wish the author success and hope that she comes with many more publications for the youth to show them the right path.

Dr Geetha Mohan,

Member, Board of Studies,

NMIMS School of Liberal Arts,

Ex Principal, UPG College of Management, Mumbai,

5. Stop! Don’t Go There! expertly details the stories of leaders who connect the dots between values, mistakes and learning. This book offers pragmatic lessons for success.

Rajesh Kocchar,

Business Coach, Ex CEO,

Wipro Lighting, Ex MD, Harmonic Limited

6. Stop!!Don’t Go There is simply, a great concept…I am a vociferous reader but have not come across a subject like this. Very novel, leaders making mistakes, learning, adjusting, and then winning. It is a great learning to be kept as a part of study material in a school curriculum. Hats off to Dr Parveen for having taken the pain, time and effort to reach out to these successful persons and collating a chronicle like this. After starting the book, you can’t wait to complete before doing anything else. A sure shot winner…

Mahendra Surekha,

Director and CEO, MACJ

7. Dr Parveen has shared her expertise on Leaders and Leadership through several interviews. A compelling compilation of diverse lessons learnt by leaders. It offers a refreshing approach to mistakes in organizations

SudhirNerurkar,

President and CEO, Quanzen Consultants

8. Leaders do make mistakes, and smart ones learn from them. Even smarter ones learn from the mistakes of others. STOP! Don’t Go There!! by Parveen Prasad is a must read for MBA students and professionals aspiring for leadership roles.

Debapratim Purkayastha,

Associate Dean, ICFAI Business School, Hyderabad

9. A bible for the corporate world, Stop-Don’t Go There-Mistakes made by top leaders, authored by Dr Parveen Prasad is a priceless tool for all those who mean business in the corporate world. Well researched and easy to read, the book opens a doorway that leads us to the inner world of CEOs who openly admit on hindsight to the mistakes they made scaling the ladder. A treasure trove that is unputdowable, the book illustrates valuable lessons to learn from mistakes of top leaders, instead of making your own.

Farida Master,

journalist and author of An Uncensored

Life-Biography of Zerbanoo Gifford

Table of Contents

Preface

Foreword

Acknowledgement

Epilogue

Prologue

Introduction and Background

Section I: Values

Section II: Mistakes, A Framework and Scope

Section II (A): People Mistakes

Section II (B): It’s All About Money

Section III: Learning: Lessons Learnt

Future Beckons

Addendum: Profiles of Leaders – Values, Mistakes and Learning

Bibliography

Preface

Missteps make business leaders successful, provided you turn those mistakes into genuine learning opportunities.

Successful organizations create a learning culture. An environment that is overly supportive of mistakes sends wrong signals, while that which encourages a punitive environment discourages employees from owning up, when they make mistakes. Clearly, a balance has to be struck.

From an early part of my career, I would openly talk with my colleagues up and down the hierarchy about the mis-judgments, I or we as team had made. This was a culture fostered originally by my Managing Director in my first job at a British MNC, where I joined as a management trainee. I felt comfortable critiquing myself honestly, as he had created this open culture.

Of course, life is too short to always learn from your own mistakes – so the best way is to learn from others’ genuine mistakes. But of course, when the mistake happens, one must immediately take the lead to learn and rectify. Clearly, the approach is not to repeat the same mistake over and over again.

One of the most important elements here is transparency. Things will go wrong but when they do, then we must speedily communicate to the team/organization – that something is amiss – what it could be – that it is being corrected – and what steps we are taking to correct it.

By owning it, letting go of the pride we can only become stronger and better.

Failure hurts. But each failure provides a learning opportunity. Success is a poor teacher! Crushing defeats should not be viewed as ‘game over’ sign but as a tool on the journey to even greater heights.

So how do we all learn? Some of us pretty early in our careers but many later when sometimes it is ‘too late’. I was fortuitous at the formative stages of my career to have superiors and CEO’s who were fairly well evolved. One of the early lessons I was taught is whether one realizes or not, we all have a personal brand – which ramifications for the corporate culture and can have reaching implications.

One of the first lessons and a key one at that was to engage closely with the team and employees. Non-verbal language was as important as verbal as it has a stronger grammar! Effectively, this made me more approachable with easy eye contact and body language with high emotional and cultural quotient.

The second most important lesson I learnt as a young manager was that CEO’s hate surprises, particularly if it is bad news. Clearly, this can only be done if we have built trust and candour alongside strong inter-personal relationships.

The third key lesson I imbibed from these learnings, was to focus on future business success and not past failures. Setbacks come in any business, but we need to take home learnings, to ensure a secure future.

Early on, I also learnt the value of good communication and I would like to illustrate this from early part of my career at a major British Multinational.

We were producers of an iconic brand of fibre which was the marketed to the leading textile mills in the country, with equally iconic brand names. It was decided to have a fashion show of these fabrics along with a Miss India show – which was very popular in those days and organized by Femina; the leading woman’s magazine.

All very good till this stage -we had the successful fashion extravaganza at the key metros and few large cities where the preliminaries of the Miss India Contest too were held with the final slated for Mumbai at the famous Shanmukhanda Hall. Come the D Day, and with all the VIP invitees in the hall, I had taken the call that when the Miss India name was declared, we would call for the wife of the Managing Director of our company to crown the winner. This in my mind would have been a pleasant surprise for her and perhaps, she would enjoy doing this. The moment came and she went up the stage and crowned the winner – photographs were flashed next day in the leading paper the Times of India. I went home very happy that the boss; my MD must have also been pleased and so would have his dear wife.

How very wrong could I be. Next morning I was summoned to his office and got a dressing down for not having alerted him and his wife, regarding the planning. In my mind what was meant to be pleasant surprise turned out to be a bad dream! Which I later learnt was my fault. Not understanding that if a lady is being called onto the stage crown a Miss India and had been alerted in advance, she would have perhaps herself dressed differently with different accessories. Clearly, the wife of the MD was peeved and would have communicated this to her husband, who rightly rapped my knuckles. This was a sharp lesson in communication.

The second major incident many years later, was when I was the Managing Director of a sizeable firm.We had acquired an organization which was in the similar business, but was making operating losses. Upon review, it was clear that it needed infusion of large capital. We decided to go ahead, although in a phased manner – even though it was clear that we had a catch up game to play and the previous management had not neglected this for years. This was a big mistake – as we should have provided a large tranche of capital and upgraded the plant fully, end to end, instead of just the most run down parts. We did not get the US FDA approval in time and lost a lot of business and had to start all over again. Mercifully, this acquisition was not a large part of the organization. Hence, we could weather this misstep – but clearly it was a sharp lesson.

Finally, I would like to talk about the key lesson learnt from the merger of Sandoz and Ciba-Geigy to form Novartis. The pivotal strategy was the speed of the merger, creating not only an atmosphere of collaboration and trust, but also buttressing it by significant face to face communication. Further, adopting the best practice regardless of the heritage helped. This truly laid the seeds of the successful company that Novartis is today, a company each Novartis associate is proud of.’

Ranjit Shahani, Vice Chairman and Managing Director, Novartis India Limited.

Foreword

Parveen Prasad has a doctorate in Corporate Leadership and has authored books related to Human Resource. She has written Stop! Don’t Go There! Mistakes made by Top Leaders, which is an exemplary book divided into three chapters:

♦Values

♦Mistakes

♦Learning

All those working in industries believe and practises that a company’s performance is based on their employees’contribution as a team work.

Venerated Mr. J.R.D. Tata believed and practised three important requirements for getting along with employees:

♦Communication – Free and Frank transparent discussions on continuous basis – listen, learn and practice.

♦Honesty and Sincerity – One of the most important criterion for dealing with all the employees at all levels. Be firm but absolutely fair.

♦Trust – The important factor to motivate and inspire employees to be loyal and in turn trust you.

In the times of VUCA, it is essential to ensure that employees are motivated and their abilities are utilised for innovation, development and imparting their knowledge and experience to the young trainees. This will reduce loss of talent from the company and lower the attrition rate.

The mistakes are not committed only by the people who do not work. Main aspect which has been brought out by the author in multiple interviews she had with captains of industry is, that anyone can make mistakes but most important, learn from the mistake and make sure no one repeats the same. Lessons learnt, discussions and evaluations on regular basis in any organisation is most important.

Don’t judge your employees as per your personal standards, only then they would be fit to occupy your chair. Give them opportunities, by encouraging and motivating them for their own growth and they will in turn, ensure their best for the growth of the company. Don’t be a ‘Yes’ man; express your views frankly and freely. They may not be accepted but do not let that deter you.

The author has well brought out the value added by coaches and mentors too, which deepen the insights and valuation of future leaders providing them opportunities to discuss their vision and strategies to fulfil the same. Parveen Prasad has done a commendable job of