Wednesday, September 2, 2015

CEO SPECIAL..................JUST in CEO

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JUST in CEO

How do newly minted CEOs build their personal brand?

When Gaurang Pandya was named President of UTC Building and Industrial Systems in March, his first priority was to appoint someone to take over his old job. Pandya was earlier managing director of UTC's climate control division (of Carrier fame), the company's largest vertical, which made him the natural choice for the top post at UTC India when the earlier President, Zubin Irani, quit to join a private equity firm. Pandya needed to familiarise himself with the company's other verticals but before that, he needed to ensure a smooth transition at Carrier. “My appointment as President had a cascading effect in terms of succession. For every person who was promoted as a result, a successor had to be decided,“ he says.
Once he settled the succession process at Carrier, Pandya moved on to better acquainting himself with leaders in UTC's other divisions, such as Otis Elevators.“I knew everybody but I'd worked with only half of them,“ he says. “There's always some apprehension when a new guy comes in because he brings in a new thought process. The best way to handle it is to communicate clearly. I travelled to all our factories, offices, project sites to talk to people directly and ensure nothing is lost in translation.“
To lead not just run
New CEOs certainly need to work quickly to establish their personal brand. Those appointed from within the organisation already have some brand equity, but those appointed from outside often need to build it from scratch.
Anand Kripalu was appointed manag ing director & CEO of United Spirits last year, after spending seven months in the com pany as CEO des ignate. Since then, he has spent most of his time meeting stakeholders and addressing issues like organisational culture, ethics, strategy. “I need to be seen and heard. People needed to feel my impact. After all, the CEO embodies the culture of the company,“ he says.
Like Kripalu, Vivek Gambhir had the benefit of a short stint as strategy head at Godrej Consumer Products before he was named MD. But unlike Kripalu, who had earlier been managing director of Cadbury, Gambhir had never been CEO.“I quickly realised that being CEO is about leading and not running the company,“ he says. “You are responsible for thousands of people and you are the guardian of the company's values.“
Indeed, most CEOs say that there is a palpable change in the way former peers relate to them once they are named for the top post, which makes the job rather lonely.Earlier the head of the enterprise vertical at Lenovo India, Rahul Agarwal was promoted to managing director two months ago and he felt perceptions change immediately.“I watch what I say in meetings these days,“ he says. “I begin with a disclaimer that I am here as an observer and that everything I say should not be taken as directions.“
The big impact
New CEOs know that everybody -including the Board that hired them -is watching to see what they do in their initial months. But as they strive to make their impact on the organisation, new CEOs face a dilemma: how fast should they move? “The pressure is there to deliver results, but you have to keep in mind the long term,“ says Gambhir. “There are no silver bullets for a CEO in the first 100 days. You have to be demanding, but also culturally aware so as not to upset things.“
One of Gambhir's more visible actions in his first few months was to abolish the position of international operations head and have the CEOs of international subsidiaries report directly to him. At UTC, one of Pandya's early wins was to accelerate localisation in the Otis manufacturing facility in Bangalore, rolling out high-end elevator models that were previously imported. R Suresh, managing director of headhunting firm RGF India says it's important for new CEOs to make a tangible difference as soon as they can: “Of course, they need to get to know people in the organisation, but it is best done on the job...while tackling a major business problem. After the long and gruelling hiring process, the board has the right to expect that from the new CEO.“
Suresh gives the example of a CEO he helped place who resolved a tax dispute that had been hanging over the company, by bringing in a new lawyer he knew to the case. He also gives the example of Vishal Sikka, CEO of Infosys, who is known to have started by visiting key customers, taking his senior executives with him. “His direct reports essentially learnt of his vision for the company when he explained it to customers,“ says Suresh.
Be that as it may, some CEOs would rather not rush it. In the last stages of his recruitment as CEO of Raymond, some Board members asked Sanjay Behl what he expected to achieve in the first 100 days.“I said `nothing'. My priority, I told them, was to understand the industry and the company, which meant travelling to all the production facilities, the market, the retail stores. If I was going to change anything, it would only be after I understood how things worked,“ says Behl. Behl moved to Raymond from Reliance Communications, an industry with a culture very different from textiles. After getting to know the company better, he swung into action with a series of very visible moves like restructuring the organisation, outsourcing the IT function and recruiting a slew of senior people.Most of them are in newly created posts like e-commerce head and chief marketing officer. Putting together a high grade team should be a new CEO's highest priority says Behl, even if means getting new people to replace the old. “When it's a large organisation like Raymond, you should try and keep at least two-thirds of the existing team. The rest should be new hires.“
Scions of family-run companies face the same issues as their professional counterparts, the only difference being that they're usually younger. Anant Goenka was named managing director of Ceat at the age of 30, after spending two years as deputy managing director under the mentorship of old-timer Paras Choudhury, who retired in 2012. As a member of the promoter family, Goenka knew the company culture well, but upon assuming charge, he was faced with a classic dilemma: who would be on his core team? “You never get a perfect team,“ he says.“You have to drop a few weak performers, bring in new people. But as a newcomer, you can't be overtly critical, or you will rub people the wrong way. It was difficult for me because I attained the position because of my family, instead of 100% merit. But once I gained confidence, I got into the difficult conversations that building a good team requires.“
Even as he was building his team, Goenka announced some high impact strategic decisions at Ceat, such as the shift in focus from truck tyres to twowheeler and SUV tyres. His succession to the post of CEO marked a new beginning for Ceat and he used it to reach out to the unionised workers at the company's plants in Mumbai and Vadodara. “Tyre making requires manual effort, but I've been trying to make it less laborious by investing in a few tools. Even small things like installing better ventilation makes a big difference. You have to earn the worker's trust by making their work easier where possible.“
MNC playbook
As an increasing number of global companies start operations in India, there's another set of new CEOs emerging: the country heads. These CEOs don't get to move into a ready infrastructure ­ they have to create organisations from scratch. When Manu Jain was appointed India head of Xiaomi a year ago, he was the Chinese cell phone maker's first employee in the country. He has recruited 35 people since then, many of them former entrepreneurs like himself. “When I was in China for the interviews, the promoters told me they wanted a flat, non-hierarchical organisation,“ says Jain. “Headquarters hasn't given us revenue targets or KPIs, they just want us to focus on the needs of Indian consumers, solve pains.That is a different approach because country heads are usually concerned about sales.“
Indeed, some view these CEOs as glorified sales managers, but these openings are certainly giving talented CXOs a shot at upgrading their careers and gaining valuable experience. When Concur, a subsidiary of SAP, recently decided to expand its sales office in Mumbai into a full-fledged operation, it recruited Ramesh Iyer as managing director, India. Iyer has since recruited 30 people and using the contacts he developed in his previous job as business president at Tata Teleservices, he has managed to bag a big order for Concur's expense-management software from one of India's more prominent IT companies, thereby establishing himself as a successful new CEO. “As CEO, your outlook changes completely. You get to define strategy for the company. You no longer play second fiddle, you are the fiddle,“ he says
By Dibeyendu Ganguly
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CDET28AUG15 

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