| talking point |
(From Left) Fr Oswald Marcarenhas,
SJ, JRD Tata Chair in Business Ethics at
XLRI lights the inaugural lamp as
Prof. Jitendra Singh, Sujitha Karnad of
Mahindra & Mahindra and Ritesh
Ghosal of Tata Teleservices look on
Leadership
series at XLRI
to understand the frog. Thus to
understand an organisation one
needs to understand its external
environment.
Dr. Singh initiated the
discussion by emphasising on
the need for organisations to
evolve according to the changes
taking place in the external
environment. Taking a cue
from Jack Welch, renowned
leader of General Electric
(GE), Dr. Singh stressed that
the rate of internal changes in
the organisation should at least
be in pace or exceed the rate of
changes happening externally.
Taking forward the discus-
sion, Ghosal said the value
proposition of the consumer
should blend with that of the
organisation. There should be
a real-time or near real-time
listening mechanism for cus-
tomers thus creating a learning
organisation.
Bringing in an HR perspec-
tive to the topic, Karnad said
“Focus on the workforce. It
must be increasingly global,
have generational diversity and
should be a contributing part of
large teams.” Given the rise in
entrepreneurship the HR frater-
nity should be empowered to
groom budding entrepreneurs
within the organisation.
‘Creative, innovative,
imaginative and intuitive’ were
the tips from Fr Mascarenhas
for companies that want to be
future ready. He suggested that
when organisations talk about
future they should take into ac-
count the next 5-10 years’ time
period. Future of the organisa-
tion depends on its structure
and on how well the organisa-
tion is designed today — ‘De-
signing changes anything
and everything about the
product’.
Referring to future-ready
organisations as version 3.0 and
the current ones as version 2.0,
Datta explicated how compa-
nies evolved. He stressed on
empowerment being important
for organisations. In future
versions ‘the problems will
be so complex that organisa-
tions and consultants will have
to constantly collaborate’.
Envisioning the future, he cited
interesting examples of super
specialisation where individuals
focus on gaining expertise in
specific areas within a function.
The panel discussion was
followed by student interaction
with the industry stalwarts.
Please write to us at
may 2014
|
magis
23
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C
omplete development
of an indi-
vidual is the core belief at XLRI. State-of-the-
art academic facilities, accomplished professors and
initiatives like XLRI Leadership Series (XLS) cater to
this belief. The series is an opportunity for students to
interact with some of the leading industry practitioners.
It also acts as a platform for leaders from major
companies to enlighten the students of the best prac-
tices and trends evident in various industries across the
country.
A mutual relationship has been fostered over a
period of time where students enthusiastically await the
leaders in order to gain wisdom, whereas the stalwarts
are eager to interact with the students of XLRI in order
to gauge the talent pool.
