Veterans Unpacked | Vineet Nayar: 'Listen to your employees and they will tell you how to get it right'

Note to readers: How ​do corporate leaders surf life after hanging up their boots? What do they do next? What are the lessons they learned in their eventful journeys? What advice do they have for the current crop of leaders? Veterans Unpacked is a new series of interviews aimed to offer readers lessons from retired bosses on life outside the corner office.

Vineet Nayar was the vice-chairman and managing director of HCL Technologies, which he helped grow to a $4.7 billion company with global reach in five years, before stepping down in 2013. His theories on management and leadership have been taught as part of case studies at both Harvard Business School and London Business School.
Before HCL, the MBA from XLRI, also started his own firm, Comnet, where many of his own business principles were implemented.

Nayar is an adviser to PwC, ChrysCapital and is passionate about flipping conventional wisdom on its head. Excerpts from an interview:

What have you been up to since hanging up your boots?

The time to hang my boots is still far away... but I have seen three kinds of boots in life, figuratively speaking, so far. The first was the “flip flop Sandal” phase from 1992-2005 while setting up a successful start-up called Comnet which was a pioneer in IT remote infrastructure management that  grew to be a multibillion growth segment and Comnet contributed over a dozen high-performing CEOs to the industry.

The second phase was the “Shining Leather shoes” phase from 2005-13 being part of the HCL Technologies' transformation from $700 million to $4.5 billion and giving birth to the idea of “Employees First, Customer Second” that is now a book I wrote, and a case study at Harvard Business School.

The third and the most exciting phase is 2013 onwards - the “Hiking shoes” phase  where I had the opportunity of being a catalyst of large-scale social change by leveraging design thinking and innovation through Sampark Foundation. Today, we impact learning for over one crore children in 84,000 government schools and have an aspiration to touch the lives of two crore children in the next three years.

What keeps you busy now?

Thinking about the problem of education in India where 7 out 10 children in grade 5 can’t read grade 2 texts or do simple math operations. Also, working hard to come up with innovative and frugal ideas that would transform learning in rural schools by inspiring five lakh government school teachers to ignite the classroom by using Sampark Smart Shala Math and English Kits. I am also working on a very exciting design project of how to teach coding without computers in class 6-8 to one crore children in order to get them hooked to STEM (science, technology, English, math).

I like high altitude trekking, games of badminton and table tennis every Sunday, and on occasion the rare single malt. My golden retriever Simba and I go for a walk regularly.

Looking back, can you tell us about three interesting events or anything that has stayed with you since?

In 2015, I was invited to spend a day advising a friend who was a global CEO. We kicked it off with dinner in a very expensive restaurant in London and he talked at length about the company's great heritage and fascinating growth over the last few years. He paused and then looked at me for my comments. I must confess it must have been the French wine and his warm hospitality  that made me hesitate for a bit, but then I replied: “Yes, I know you were great. But so was Kodak!" At first, he looked visibly hurt, as though he had been slapped. But I continued: “The question is: What about today? Are you great now? Or are you having a Kodak moment?” He was quiet for a while, thought long and hard, and then burst out laughing. “Thanks!” he said, “That’s what friends are for, to tell it like it is.” I did not hear back from him and my only regret is that I should have paid the bill because his company got sold a few years later. We met again for an Indian dinner at my home later and he talked about the golf handicap he has now. Fortunately, I did not say a word thus I still have a friend. The lesson of course is you can't live in the past. Most leaders are trapped in their rear-view mirror. They don't talk about today and tomorrow. They should look ahead.

You need to build organisations to innovate not just what you do, but more importantly innovate how you do it.

What do you miss most about the C-Suite?

The abundance of financial resources and talent with ideas, and the excitement and the adrenaline of the quarterly results, and being questioned by young analysts and journalists on why one number is right and another is not. There is a certain irrelevance that comes about when wealth or recognition is in excess.

If you had to relive your corporate career, what would you do differently?

Change my shoes a bit faster. The first and second phase of my work life was about wealth creation and achieving recognition of being a disruptive thinker by virtue of setting up Comnet as a startup in phase one and by being part of a disruptive change in a legacy organisation. The third and the most satisfying phase of my life is through the Sampark Foundation and touching the lives of others and creating happiness amongst millions, especially children. I believe I should have started the third phase a few years earlier.

What are the changes in the corporate world that you see now that are vastly different from your time?

I do get a sense that some of our successful leaders are becoming incremental in thought, slow in action and uninspiring in vision. Their organisations now feel like a dead ocean with a disengaged workforce, low innovation output and a culture of blame running in circles, and all adding up to losing market share and mindshare. It is unfortunate yet true that some leaders are leading their organisations into the dead ocean zone because they are not able to grasp the full impact of the three forces of change. First, the industrial era brought the world of process and the science of managing to centre stage and it did deliver great results. However, the digital era demands high doses of innovation. Thus you need to build organisations to innovate not just what you do, but more importantly innovate how you do it. That needs inspired leaders and not managers still trapped in their obsession to “manage”.

Second, the world of management as we know it is dead. Management pyramids are dead. Millennials in the workplace are far more open, more connected, more collaborative. Therefore, they will not fall into the line of a command-and-control structure. No longer do employees want to be managed and organised in rows and columns as if they were in a school. They will not fall into the line with an obsolete hierarchy or get buried under dead pyramids. If you have any doubts about this, look at the children in your own family.

Third, the progressive advance of technology has added fuel in making the manager’s role redundant. The knowledge they brought is now readily available online. Their analytical capabilities are slowly being replaced with artificial intelligence and data analytics. And of course, their routine tasks can all be carried out with just an app!

There is no doubt that we need leaders not just managers in a new decidedly more powerful avatar today who we can trust and follow. We need a lot more from all our leaders as that is the only way this country will see growth.

Step on the gas and create blue oceans instead of leading teams into dead oceans by focusing on what the West has done.

Which business leader in the current crop impresses you?

Most of them are good at the core and I know many personally, thus will not name just a few. They would not be in the driver's seat if they didn’t have what it takes. In today’s world of transparency and hyper measurements, a leader can’t just wing it. Leading is a tough job of juggling the balls you have in your hands and running uphill. We must respect and applaud them. However, I do believe that some of these very talented leaders need to search within their hearts for a bigger aspiration and a more inspiring vision of the future. The opportunities today are mind-blowing and we need leaders to step on the gas and create blue oceans instead of leading their teams into dead oceans by focusing on what the West has done and by doing it cheaper, better and faster. I hope more leaders build to last and less build to sell.

How did you plan for life after retirement?

I set up Sampark Foundation in 2005 knowing fully well what I would do post HCL Technologies. For the first eight years, Sampark Foundation was a grant-making organisation, and in 2013, when I joined it in an active role, we transformed ourselves into a ground-based change-driving organisation. My next plan post-2025 is already set in motion, I am working on that blueprint so that the table is set when the time comes.

Is there anything you would tell your younger self?

Yes, it will turn out to be super fun! Don't worry, everything will fall into place and it will be hell of a roller-coaster theme park ride and you will spin around and the ride will  have its ups and down but in the end it will be fun.

What is your advice for the next cadre of corporate leaders?

You know it all, don’t listen to guys like me from the previous generation who have not dealt with the challenges and opportunities you are dealing with now. Listen to your employees and they will tell you how to get it right because I still believe in employees first, customer second. You can create magic by putting humans right in the centre of your strategy.