Thanks for bringing out the book and sharing our experience. As a Business Graduate I feel such books will help us in learning how to face the situations and bring out the leaders within.

Best Wishes,
Vamsi ( PGDBE from WLC-Hyd)

So, my bigger question is: How do we ‘smell’ such potential ‘tigers’ or ‘tiger-like behaviours’ inside a supposedly ‘healthy’ organization and prevent them from ‘eating’ its hapless employees? As an engineer, I feel lackadaisical attitude towards systems and undue and irrational (unscientific) obedience to the powers-be (organizational psychology) contribute to such ‘Satyam-like tigers’ riding high else people could cage them early. Remember the Indian story of Panchatantra where lesser subjects (rabbits, deer) collectively hatched a plot to throw the greedy, powerful and arrogant tiger–the king of the jungle–in a well to protect their community from its evil predator.

Having said that, I don’t proclaim myself to be pure and idealistic. As one of the loyal employee of Satyam then, I believed in the future progress of the organization while at the same time abhorred its weak systems infrastructure in a series of educative and solution-oriented articles circulated among its Full Life Cycle Leaders. In the light of the then economic adversities and the state of our internal systems, the most we feared then, was losing our profitability and industry rank few notches below– but, not our face in the public.

Now, as a teacher of Systems Thinking and Real-Time Systems to engineering students, I advise prospective employees and leaders in the organization to recognize that:

a) Everything is connected to everything as a System. Allow free flow of information (formal). Play silent listener to informal communication which in a connected society cannot be inhibited by organizational powers. Most importantly–’feelings’ (which are like unsubstantiated ‘smoke signals’ in the form of ‘unspoken and boss-may-feel-bad-like’ irritations and water-cooler chitchats). Both these sources of information provide valuable insights for continuous improvement and most importantly anticipate potential problems ahead.

b) After all, we are all human beings as individuals. Accept the fact, that here is a little bit of ‘satyam’ in all of us. Systems oriented organizations would account for this fact and smell impending problems much ahead by ACTIVELY LISTENING to ‘smoke signals’ and take PROACTIVE measures to neutralize their ill-effects in the future.

c) Systems should be ABOVE the Individuals. Monitor ‘exceptions’ closely. In a large organization, such exceptions (hijacking by few individuals/leaders without transparency and accountability) would lead to lack of organization-wide credibility in systems and therefore their nonchalant abandon by one and all.

d) Respect rationality and scientific attitude. Let irrational behaviour of few not cloud your professional judgement (rational thinking) at any cost–even if it creates adversarial relationship in the short-run, or losing your job at worst. In the long-run, you win.

e) Be a Systems Thinker: The higher you are in the leadership role, the greater your influence it would be on the organization (employees). Do not be a siloed leader playing deaf-ear to others/events beyond your assigned sphere-of-influence. Every decision of yours is connected to every other part of the organization (of your colleagues). If you smell something irrational (unscientific or ‘fishy’) anywhere in the system which is detrimental to the organization-at-large in the long-run, cry foul–loud and clear. If none hears, blow the whistle. We’re happy to know that post Satyam-event, several organizations became serious about ‘Whistle Blower Policy’.

Finally, we cannot avoid tigers and cubs. They are part of our natural ecosystem. Caging one or two bad tigers would not help. There may be several on the prowl. We have to adopt systems that neutralize bad behaviours of few tigers.

As we speak, we hear stories of many bad-tigers in the public life too who are squandering tax-payers money by several thousands of crores. It is unfortunate that only an external media could highlight them and, not internal systems.

- KG KRISHNA

Regards,
Abhilekh (working in Mahindra Satyam as a Test Lead)

We thank you for sharing your story with everyone. This is exactly the essence of Riding the Tiger: Leading Through Learning in Turbulent Times. It is a book that shares how people react, respond, and courageously lead in the most extreme conditions imaginable. Rebuilding trust, even for the innocent leaders is a daunting task. You are truly an outstanding leader to have remained so focus on the right path. Ed & Pris

The world finds it hard to believe – you are a senior finance professional , you may say you were part of business finance and how come you were not aware of it. Be it a consultant or new employer who wants to hire or anyone finds it difficult to believe it, this incident has surely tarnished professional image in one’s CV and left a hurt feeling. While one would feel confident in one’s inner soul that am right and have strong values and beliefs but public perception of Satyam Finance team is a “Big ?” . We had 50-60% attrition despite all these in Finance function , the middle layer is completed wiped out, we have been handling reskilling and re-training all junior most resources who are graduates and still surviving. I do not know what will change this and we are patiently waiting for it to dawn. But personally and professionally i feel i had been able to stay on to save those 50000+ employees to anchor somehow in their lives…….. Subbu