thank you so much just close your eyes
for a minute just go ahead close your
eyes for a minute and imagine that you
are standing on the ledge of building
which is three storey high and imagine
that the building is on fire
and if you knew that the right answer
for you is to jump in the next 30
seconds how many of you will jump I
guess everybody imagine you are on that
ledge of a building with your entire
team then 100,000 and the building is on
fire and you are the only one who knows
the right answer is to jump in the next
30 seconds for all of you to be saved
and you turn to your teammates a jump
what do they do they jump because you
said so or they don't jump because you
said so think about it I was standing on
a ledge of a building in 2005 with
25,000 of my colleagues as a new leader
and they looked up to me as to what to
do next I knew that the right answer is
to jump but somewhere in my heart I knew
that Villa's leaders have done nothing
to win the trust of our employees and
therefore even if I say jump what they
jump did they jump I will come to that
story in a bit but let's rewind a bit
and tell you a story about how did I get
on the ledge of that building in the
first instance in India and that is true
with many parts of the world when a
child is born it is considered
auspicious for the grandmother I call
her Amma walks up to the child is the
first to pick up the child and she picks
up this child in her hands and defines
the version for that child that vision
has no data that vision has no logic and
she says your fingers are so long it
should be an artist your forehead is so
wide you will be a NASA scientist
everybody in the family believes in that
vision when the girl grows up that
vision becomes her ambition becomes her
pursuit and then becomes her reality I
was fortunate to be born in Miami House
those days children were born in homes
not hospitals on this huge bed which
could sleep nine people
Miami picked me up and I guess I was
waiting for this vision and she picked
me up and defined this vision and save
we need this boy is going to do good and
he's going to have
steady job what I guess my grandmother
didn't see anything to say something
more profound but not true 23 years
later
armed with this MBA degree I walked
through the corridors of my first job at
HCL four weeks later I was called into
the room with his four grim-looking
people who had the single sheet of paper
in front of them they sat me down and
said beneath we don't think you fit into
our organization I don't know what I was
most disappointed about the fact that I
was rejected Howard the fact that even
that vision with my grandmother thought
of me has collapsed I still remember
that night it was very long very painful
very frustrating but by the time the
morning came my life had changed with
the sunrays I made two commitments to
myself the first that I will do
everything in my power to outsmart these
self-proclaimed gods who believe in
leading by rejecting rather than
accepting and second that one day I will
be the CEO of this company
and show them the way somebody has
rightly said you need to be a bit
careful about what you wish two decades
later time had turned a full circle the
chairman of HCl who's a brilliant man
with you know uncanny intuition and
foresight invited me to be the CEO of
HCl
I was afraid not that I was not happy to
be a CEO but I was afraid not because my
first commitment was turning right but
my second commitment that did I know how
to lead by accepting rather than
rejecting and I said how would I know
unless I try and that is the reason I
was on that ledge of the building with
25,000 other employees who were waiting
for my direction to jump because we
wanted to transform HCl to be the best
company in the world transform is a very
interesting word changing the form of
something permanently in my mind you can
transform the company in two ways first
by innovating in what you do which is
the obsession of the world to be a
Google to be a Facebook to be a Tesla
but it is a more interesting human way
of transforming yourself using
innovation about how you treat your
employees about how you run your company
by increasing the clock speed of your
organization you can actually outperform
all your competition with the same
product the same customer the same
market why don't people get it our
journey of thinking about innovation on
the how axis rather than what access
with three fundamental questions the
first what is the business we are in and
our answer we are in the business of
creating unique experiences unique value
for our customers and the more unique we
are the higher market share we will
create second question where does this
unique experience unique value get
created and who creates this unique
experience with unique value answer it
gets created where our customers and our
employees meet in that interface we call
the values own and our employees in that
values on create that unique experience
thus the third question if our employees
are the unique value are or creating the
unique value which helps us grow faster
then what should the role of managers
and management in any company be and the
obvious answer for us was nothing but
enthusing encouraging enabling those
employees to create the unique
experience so that we can grow faster
what is not obvious about that and that
is how employees first customer second
was born where the management is in the
business of enthusing encouraging
enabling people and employees are in the
business of customers first ideas are
great but they are many many of them
fail on the pedestrian of execution our
study of revolutions our study of Indian
revolutions with Mahatma Gandhi came to
the shores of India in 1915 with this
inspirational idea of non-violence he
came to the shores of e.on in 1915 we
had this inspiration leader with the
inspirational idea and yet it took 32
years for India to gain independence so
we studied revolutions we studied
transformations on sports team
we started organization transformations
and came down with what we call three
steps for successful execution the first
was create unhappiness with today there
were so many of my colleagues on that
ledge who didn't want to jump because
they did not think anything was wrong
with the company I'm sure that is not
happening in your company that people
are slicing and dicing the data to look
good I don't think is happening but if
you are slicing and dicing the data to
look good then how would the change
happen it is important to say mirror
mirror on the wall
I am the ugliest of all a diamond cutter
gets excited with rough diamond not
polished diamond a Potter gets excited
with rough clay what you need in your
organizations to transform are those
diamond cutters the plum birds and the
Potter's who believe in challenges then
show them the challenge and they will
fix it for you so we threw all our dirty
linen in public for everybody to see so
that it was not about whether we are
performing and not it was what can we do
with this the word I can't say the
second is defining a vision for tomorrow
which is so compelling that people will
jump out of their bed and go walks with
you freedom where is that vision in our
organization why does an employ on a
Sunday spend his money time energy drive
to a mosque a Monday and a church and
feel good about it and why does the same
employee get paid to come to our
organizations on Monday
and feel bad about it because
organizations have a vision and a
purpose for themselves they don't have a
vision and purpose for that
employee-employer first was an
experiment to inward the organization
pyramid by inspiring people to do what
they wanted to do rather than what we
wanted them to do the question we ask
ourselves if we could inspire these
people to pursue a vision which is their
vision and that vision is aligned with
our vision magic will happen and it did
the third step was how do we move from
here to there we have created
dissatisfaction with today a vision for
tomorrow how do we move and the answer
was high performance teams attempt to do
what others consider impossible so
unless in your life in your teams you
are attempting to do the impossible how
can you ever think of high performance
so one idea which worked at HCl was the
fact that we opened a 360-degree survey
of all our managers including the CEO so
all our employees did confidential
survey 360-degree survey anonymously of
everybody including their CEOs from 32
countries and the results were published
on the web for all to see with one
stroke
we had democratized the organization we
had inverted the pyramid and now the
employees were owning the change they
wanted to see so many ask me this
question in terms of we need did they
succeed honestly I don't know but I do
know for a fact that 25,000 brilliant
individuals
jumped that summer of 2005 and when they
landed there were hundreds of they grew
the company six folds in the peak of
recession in seven years they were
number one in customer satisfaction
employee satisfaction and did everything
which others considered impossible the
second question I'm asked is we need
would this initiative outlast a leader
remember my grandmother had defined a
second vision that you would do good me
and my wife started a foundation and
today we are reaching out to 2.8 million
poor children in rural schools across
India by innovating on how education is
delivered to them and for these last two
years HCl has outperformed whatever they
did in my tenure so the story is not
about me this story is not about those
brilliant 25,000 100,000 employees but
this story is about our grandmothers
vision our grandmother's sense of
leadership so can we hold this employee
in our hands can we define a vision for
her can everybody believe and trust us
in that vision and go work for that
vision can that employee trust us and
make that vision her ambition or pursuit
and then her reality employee first is a
leap of faith every single employee
deserves from every single manager in
the world please stand up all of you
please stand up
please join me in making this commitment
that we are going to make employ first
reality for millions of people who walk
through our organizations nor just to
get paid but to be inspired by the
vision you have for them thank
you