Riding The Tiger

As a business leader and learning professional, my eye is always geared toward exploring insights into learning cultures and models. During my visit to India in 2008, I was the keynote speaker for the Indian Society for Training & Development’s annual conference, which was hosted by Satyam. I was immediately struck by the power of Satyam’s image and infrastructure. The support provided for the conference in the sparkling, high-technology facility in Hyderabad was impressive. Even more affecting was the learning culture that had been created by Ed Cohen and Priscilla Nelson. A few days later, I facilitated an offsite seminar for Satyam professionals on how they could use a “whole brain” approach in designing their teaching and learning. I had the unique opportunity to discover Satyam via this vibrant, growing team of professionals, who demonstrated such passion and dedication to their mission that, at first, I was a bit suspicious. As my time with them unfolded, however, I felt the power of an organizational culture that was designed on the basis of learning and growth—in contrast to so many, who treat learning as a separate function or an add-on. The leadership approach that Ed and Priscilla delineated at this seminar has as one of its core principles the recognition that a learning organization is engendered from within each employee and the infrastructure that is made available to them.

“I read it. I lived it, and I recommend it. Ed and Priscilla have carefully and eloquently captured the essence of the betrayal of a Leader (Ramalinga Raju) to those who not only respected him personally but admired his professional leadership vision.

This book highlights for the reader those attributes and characteristics of “true” leaders – who benefitted from Raju’s vision of “everyone is a leader” and the Satyam School of Leadership’s meteoric rise in recognition (Ed Cohen’s drive) that transcended the misplaced trust and actually provided the corner stone of a firms unparalleled successful survival. ” Hetzel Folden, CSC

Dear Ed & Priscilla,

I do not know whether you recall me as VP-Finance at Satyam (now Mahindra Satyam). Prior to Satyam, I was Director Finance / CFO for Canon India for 5+ years, all the buzz about a growing IT services organisation , prestigious awards, elite board of directors, Corporate governance awards everything lured me into this organisation, 3.5 years prior to the break out of  “Riding the tiger” news. Until the news broke out we had no inkling of any of these. Each one of us in business finance where I belong to stretched all out for excellence to win many deals and kept on innovating. It was like our career was soaring quite high when in mid-air the career exploded to pieces and we come crashing down.

There were so many well wishers saying do you need any help, some were advising us make the career moves immediately. Each one of us did not know what to do since we had been saddled with loan of housing, we had to put a confident face hiding our personal emotions and run for finding the money in the bank (driving collection) to pay the first month Salary. Personally would say we four of us (Ramesh, Murali, VVK and Self) came together and steered it with support of other leaders. Thanks to government which stepped in. Believe me we had the land and property we wanted to pledge and take loan for Satyam- no banker or financier were willing to provide the same in the first 2 days, rather bankers starting lining up to protect their interest.

The entry of Government directors and their swift action helped us to ensure that we had the audience of the banks and we were able to gradually steer things together. As finance team we were sandwiched from multiple angles, we had to handle agencies – multiple, new board, bankers and operations to protect the interest in addition to our team motivation – many of the team members stood together to play the support role. Believe me from nowhere we required to don the hat of compliance and treasury role which we had not handled before in Satyam , build the basic data which we did not have access to and built all data metrics to enable the sale of Satyam.

When the rechristened “Mahindra Satyam” was born again then before the new employer we needed to prove ourselves to be pure, trust worthy and of integrity and were only innocent fools. Now is almost a year and half if we look back we have waded through the woods but in the journey one thing is coming out clear personally when I speak to many of my colleagues which really hurts as a professional but the learning experience of continuous adaptation handling crisis by the minute has certainly made me more confident to face anything worst.

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

When Ramailnga Raju confessed to cooking the books sending Satyam into a downward spiral many people thought the company would cease to exist.  The passion of the leaders who applied the leading through learning strategy sustained the organization until April 2009, when Tech Mahindra checked in. Since acquiring Mahindra Satyam, much has happened to put the company back on the path to success.  We are thrilled to see the organization rebounding under the leadership of Mahindra and Mahindra.  Keep up with what’s happening at: http://www.youtube.com/buzzatmahindrasatyam

Throughout an organization’s life, additional norms, behaviors, and practices creep in. This reality is even more pronounced during turbulent times. Positive behaviors may include greater pride, fierce loyalty to the organization, a stronger work ethic, broader collaboration, and boosted collegiality. Negative behaviors may include fear, distrust, and anger that results in hoarding of information and unhealthy internal competition. Together, both positive and negative behaviors change the organizational culture.

Charles Hill and Gareth Jones (2001, 396) define organizational culture as the “beliefs and ideas about what kinds of goals members of an organization should pursue and ideas about the appropriate kinds or standards of behavior organizational members should use to achieve these goals. From organizational values develop organizational norms, guidelines, or expectations that prescribe appropriate kinds of behavior by employees in particular situations and control the behavior of organizational members towards one another.” Unfortunately, countless leaders do not recognize the influence that organizational culture has on the past, present, and future accomplishments of their enterprise. Even more important is their lack of understanding about how they influence the culture.

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