CEO SPECIAL.................... ‘Aspire for the role, not the position’

 ‘Aspire for the role (of ceo), 

not the position’

THE TRICK LIES IN INSPIRING PEOPLE ABOUT THE ROLE THAT YOU ARE PLAYING IN THE ORGANISATION GONE ARE THE DAYS OF YEARLY PLANS. NOW WE ARE LIVING FROM QUARTER TO QUARTER. THAT IS NOT A GREAT WAY TO OPERATE

JOSEPH GEORGE believes in being a practitioner and running a company like a professional cooperative where employees are groomed as stakeholders. He tells HT, among other things, that leadership should be not only be learnt but also practised. Excerpts from the interview:

How do you define a leader?

Anyone who is an inspiration across functions and levels; I think good leaders see beyond the immediate reporting line. Secondly, in advertising I believe you have to be a practitioner. When people down the line and across functions see that you are interested in and able to do it then they aspire for the right thing. It is not aspiring for the position, but aspiring for the role. When you aspire for a position, I am not very sure, once you get that designation, how long it will last. I think the trick lies in inspiring people about the role that you are playing.

Can leadership be learnt?

Leadership is always learnt. Nobody comes out a leader from day one. Overtime, you try and figure out how you deal with the situation; how you deal with the problems and opportunities, and over time you get a hang of what’s right and what’s not. Leadership is a skill and like skills, can be and should be acquired and it should be a constant learning process.

As a leader, how do you identify and groom future leaders?

From my perspective, a leader would have done his job if he can get as many people in the company to believe that they are stakeholders of the company. Grooming comes from that. In fact, I want to lead this company like a professional futurefacing cooperative. If everyone thinks and behaves like a responsible stakeholder, you will then figure out who has more skill in the game, who believes that if I do this, my company will do better. That’s the trick.

So, how do you get more employees to become stakeholders of the company?

Belief in the product philosophy is key. Number two is how you behave with others —clients and vendors. Also, in agency business there is a lot of attrition. You need to realise that at any given point of time, 30% of your staff are less than one year old. You have young blood and you get new ideas and different perspectives. They can play a disproportionate role in influencing the culture of the organisation as opposed to a top-down culture strategy. You have to learn their culture. This is the way you make people believe as stakeholders.

With so much attrition, how challenging is it to build an team to fight it out in the market?

That (attrition) is the unfortunate reality of the industry we are in. I think two areas advertising agencies used to pride themselves have slowly waned over time. One is that we were seen as the coolest profession. That is not the case anymore. Secondly, I think as an industry, we have failed each other in the way we have managed to get remunerated. This has a direct impact on the ability to pay and therefore retain people. Therefore the constant endeavour is to make people feel that they are stake

holders.

Overall due to the macro environment, last few years have been very difficult. What have been your key challenges?

I took over as CEO in January 2011. In the last few years, there has been a double whammy, there is sluggishness and there is unpredictability. Gone area the days of five and three year plans. Now we are living from quarter to quarter. That isi not a great way to operate. That’s one of the things that India Inc is looking forward to — some bit of predictability, so that you can plan and invest. Advertising is a dependent industry. When clients do well, we, most probably, do well and vice-versa. When times are tough, clients tend to work with the best. If you can actually be the best, you can benefit a lot in times such asa these.

Should a leader always be held responsible for mistakes of team members?

This is a people industry, we don’t deal with machines. We all make mistakes. That is part of life. An idea can go wrong. We have never pulled up a person for an error in judgement. I don’t think any agency would do that. If every idea was a winner, we would have been sitting on a gold mine. We are absolutely comfortable with people making errors, as long as we know what went wrong and wew don’t do it again.

What’s your one line leadership mantra?

Make every employee of your company believe he is a stakeholder.

• Nachiket Kelkar HT141204