iGate’s Failures in Risk Management

iGate fired its CEO Phaneesh Murthy for sexual misconduct after Araceli Roiz; an American employee accused him of sexual harassment. As per media reports she has claimed that the relationship started soon after she joined the organization in 2010 and is pregnant with his child.

Mr Phaneesh Murthy has the dubious honor of facing two similar charges while working as a senior manager in Infosys in 2002. Reka Maximovitch and Jennifer Griffith had both received huge out of court settlements previously. Now he faces the similar charges from Araceli Roiz. Mr Murthy has acknowledged that he had sexual relationships with Ms Roiz. However, it was with her consent. He has alleged he is being defamed and this is an attempt at extortion.

With the limited information available in the media, one cannot comment on the details of the personal relationship.

However, this disaster teaches a few lessons. iGate could have prevented this reputation damage and legal risks if it would have taken a few timely steps.  iGate board and senior managers failed to take due care of the following risks.

1.     Pre-employment Background Screening

Mr Murthy has an excellent academic and professional achievement record. He was credited for taking Infosys turnover from $ 2 million to $ 700 million. However, when he was hired by iGate in 2003 he was in the news for all the wrong reasons. The sexual harassment cases were all over the media.

iGate needed a CEO who could deliver results. My guess is the board looked the other way or considered Mr Murthy’s infidelities small or insignificant. However, if a junior or middle manager had the same reputation, his career would have been over. No organization would have hired him.

Hence, when generally senior managers background screening is more stringent  than junior or middle managers, iGate board took the opposite stance.  It appears that the same yardstick isn’t being applied for background screening or it is being given lip service.

2.     Failure to Monitor & Control CEO Behavioural Risks

iGate board and senior managers chose to ignore the CEO behavior  As per media reports, the relationship was known to the staff. However, it appears no action was taken to guide or coach Mr Murthy.

Read these statements of Mr Murthy from prior interviews at the time of Patni takeover.

The National – “Everyone says that M&As are about ego. I’ve been a salesperson for 10 years. For every 100 doors that you knock on, 98 get shut in your face. That has knocked away most of my ego. I have two teenage boys who whip my butt in every game. They have gone from wanting to be on my team to not wanting to be on the loser’s team. Because of that, I have no ego left.”

Livemint – “Not at all. I am basically a conservative, middle-class south Indian Brahmin. As it is, we don’t like debt, and I am very uncomfortable with a $700 million (around Rs 3,180 crore) debt.”

Ms Araceli Roiz is 31 years old and Mr Phaneesh Murthy is 53 years old. In conservative South-Indian Brahmin families “divorce” is taboo. With two teen aged boys at home, he started an affair, if Mr Roiz version is true, when she was in her late twenties.

From a psychological perspective, it is a classic case of a talented man unable to deal with his own fallibility and mortality. Mr Murthy is a competitive man and the yearly success in his career may have made him feel invincible and powerful.  He is raised on Indian middle class values that look down on promiscuous behavior  He competes with his own children in games. He was heading an Indian IT organization where the average age of employees is 25-26 years. Does it look like he was suffering from mid-life crises?

The board members and other senior managers could have identified the emotional baggage he was carrying around and addressed the issue. The question arises, when the board knew about his weakness and character problem, was he provided any coaching or mentoring? Or did the board take the view, that as long as he is delivering the numbers, everything will be tolerated.

3.     Lack of attention to work culture

The board and management knew that Mr Murthy had a marked reputation in respect to female employees. Secondly, it appears that is relationship with Ms Roiz was an open secret. From his own words, it doesn’t seem that he took sexual harassment or company policies seriously. In the interview, he stated:

“It was a personal relationship. The company policy states that any two employees having a relationship have to inform the superiors. It is a small note in an employee handbook. I did inform the company about the relationship. Though it was a question of timing from my side as I disclosed this only a few weeks ago, only after the relationship was over.”

According to him, “it is a small note” in the company handbook.  He didn’t believe in walking the talk in personal ethics or corporate code of conduct. Hence, the question arises, what attention iGate paid to maintain the corporate culture.

With previous cases of sexual harassment against the CEO and an on-going affair, did iGate management ensure that the sexual harassment policies were implemented in spirit? If a woman, as per Roiz’s claim, was forced into a sexual relationship by the CEO, what effect did it have on other female employees and work culture? Did it not set the stage for the hostile work culture where women would feel insecure to report cases of sexual harassment? Let us say, another female employee was harassed by a male senior manager, what options does she have when she knows that the CEO is doing something similar? How seriously was sexually offensive behavior taken by the management?

 The organizations pay a heavy price in respect to sexually harassing culture. The direct costs are of course legal penalties and cases, however, the indirect costs are absenteeism, disengagement, high turnover and lower productivity. The iGate management appears to have ignored these aspects while hiring Mr Murthy and during his tenure.

4.     Ineffective Crises Management

iGate public relations team issued the statement – “The investigation, which is on-going, has reached the finding that Murthy’s failure to report this relationship violated iGATE’s policy, as well as Murthy’s employment contract. The investigation has not uncovered any violation of iGATE’s harassment policy.”

It gave information on the interim CEO and search for the new CEO, to rest fears of the investors.

This appears more of an attempt to limit legal risks. According to US laws the company is responsible for sexual misconduct by its employees. Subsequent to the above news, the company has not made any statement or explanation on what it did to prevent such incidents.

According to media reports, the Indian employees received an explanation from the senior managers on the incident and were instructed not to talk to people outside and within the organization. An instruction not to communicate with the media or put comments in social media is sound. However, not to communicate with fellow employees sounds like an attempt to silence. Can management stop the discussion outside office hours between the employees?

In such instances, various stakeholder expectations need to be addressed. It is a sensitive issue that gets the attention of public, bloggers, activists, women lobbies etc. Even the employees psychological stress levels increase and they need to be managed. However, from the information available in the media, there isn’t much effort being done to manage the crises.

Closing Thoughts

Sexual harassment cases cause huge reputation damage and legal risks. I am not sure whether after Mr Murthy’s previous cases, iGate got proper insurance coverage for directors and senior manager liabilities. Implementing sexual harassment policies and holding everyone to high standards of conduct is something organizations need to concentrate on. The issue was taken lightly previously, but now women workforce is increasing and so are the cases of harassment. Unless companies wish to have their name tarnished, they need to take the right steps.

References:

1. Read more: http://www.thenational.ae/business/technology/rise-and-fall-and-rise-again-of-it-star-phaneesh-murthy#ixzz2UBKIGikk
2. http://www.financialexpress.com/news/phaneesh-murthy-i-will-fight-sexual-harassment-charges-vigorously/1118857/1
3. http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/tech/careers/job-trends/Murthy-scandal-iGate-staff-gets-social-media-code/articleshow/20222185.cms

Missing Men of Honor

The Story of Disgrace

A wave of shame and disgrace washed over Indian Premier League’s (IPL) Rajasthan Royals team. Three players of the team – S Sreesanth, Ajit Chandila and Ankeet Chavan – were identified as part of the spot fixing racket. Eleven bookies were involved. Investigators have found some evidence connecting it to underworld don Dawood Ibrahim.

As per police disclosure Chavan was paid Rs.60 lakhs by the bookies, Sreesanth and Chandila got Rs.40 lakhs each. By the number of matches they have played they would have earned a few crores each. The bookies lured the players by throwing parties and providing female escorts.

It is shocking that players with such international repute and excellent career opportunities would take a criminal route to earn money. One wonders what they were thinking. Were they joyously throwing up their hands in the air and dancing with happiness. Did they think that for a few millions they would be breaking the hearts, trust and expectations of billions of people, starting with their family?

It is reported that Rahul Dravid, the captain of the team suspected something. He made Sreesanth sit a couple of matches and the team managers asked him to leave the team. How painful it must have been for Dravid, a man reputed for gentlemanly conduct.

This isn’t the first time followers hearts have been broken by their idols. It started with the political leaders. Now the cancer has spread through all facets of life. Indian politicians – Gandhi, Nehru, and Azad – were known for their impeccable behavior  Congress leaders fought for Indian independence. They spent years behind bars to fight for a cause. Now Indian politicians spend time behind bars for corruption and fraud. Instead of feeling shame or humiliation, they get back into public life with renewed vigor to mislead people and make money.  Over 30% of Indian politicians have a criminal track record.

The new breed, who have joined the infamous bandwagon are senior managers of Indian corporates. After Satyam and 2G telecom scam, their names appear frequently for being interrogated by CBI and spending time in jails.

Valuing Honor in Our Lives

So where has honor disappeared? Previously, the mark of distinction for a man was when people referred to him as – “he is an honorable man”.  Having a dishonorable reputation was disastrous socially and professionally. Now, honorable men among leaders can be counted on figure tips.

As a world civilization, we need honor back in our bloodstream. Without it, humanity will reach new levels of depravity. We require men and women to work dedicatedly to get it back for the sake of next generation, though it is a challenging task.

The cynics will say it is a pipe dream and point out various flaws. The idealists look at the times gone by and wish the same could somehow come back. The practical breed has learnt to work like an automaton to earn a living and look at nothing else.

So where do we get our heroes who will change the world for us?  The heroes have to pay a price. Lincoln, Gandhi and King – were all assassinated because they dared to bring about change. From the first step to the end of their journey they made personal sacrifices. They repeatedly saw failures, their hearts sank with despair and somehow they gathered their strength to walk on thorns again.

In the present world, who would wish to trade the high life, luxuries and comforts for a life full of dynamite?

But unless we do so, we are bestowing the next generation a dangerous life.

So our choice is between our generation and the next. Do we want to look that far ahead?

Closing Thoughts  

When we talk about change, our hackles rise. Even when it is obvious that we should change, we don’t want to. That is a human failing which 100% of us have. Our best excuse is that we can’t change the world, who would listen to us, how can all the people change? But if we study change, we just need 10% of the people to believe in our cause. That is, we need to influence just 1 in 10 people in our life. That doesn’t sound very difficult; all of us are capable of doing it. So why not give it a shot, and bring honor back in our lives. I leave you with words of Dorothy L. Sayers from Gaudy Night:

“If it ever occurs to people to value the honor of the mind equally with the honor of the body, we shall get a social revolution of a quite unparalleled sort.”

References:

IPL match fixing 

Risk Managers – Tone Down That Report!

This week three renowned figures – Angelina Jolie, Larry Page and Christine Quinn – disclosed their medical problems to the world. They discussed battle with breast cancer, paralysis of vocal cords, and struggles with bulimia and alcoholism. Jolie, a woman famous for her beauty bared her mastectomy details. They talked about fear of death and handicap, and frailty of human character. They risked high-profile careers by being candid. One word describes their actions – Courage.

However, the corporate world wants to hide behind lies and window dress their weaknesses. The corporate leaders sometimes threaten risk managers and auditors to tone down their reports. The messengers of bad news get shot. Risk managers face bullying, retaliation and threat to their jobs for showing courage to speak the truth. If they refuse to bow down to pressure, the business teams label them as politically dumb or difficult to deal with. Question is – should risk managers tone down their reports to please the business teams?

I want to discuss a couple of scenarios here and you decide the course of action.

Scenario 1- Don’t report correct facts to avoid giving bad news

Let us say, you are a CXO of an organization. You have a heart problem and visit a doctor who is a good friend of yours.

The doctor realizes your heart condition is bad. You require a heart surgery for four bypasses. The doctor doesn’t want to deliver the bad news to you, because he doesn’t wish to hurt your feelings.

The doctor tells you  – “You just have too much stress. You need a vacation to relax and have some fun.” He prescribes you some vitamins and discharges you.

You follow your doctor’s advice, take a vacation. You swim and jog for a couple of days and have a heart attack. You arrive at the hospital with a survival chance of 5%.

Did the doctor do the right thing by not telling you the truth?

Scenario 2 : Don’t report correctly to protect a friend

A civil engineer responsible for doing quality and inspection checks of a bridge notices that sub-standard quality of material is used. There is a high risk of bridge collapsing. However, he issues a clean report to his seniors because the engineer-in-charge of the bridge is a friend of his.

An organisation’s senior managers drive daily across the bridge to reach their office. One day all of them are on the bridge and it collapses. All die.

Would the families of the senior managers be happy with the quality control engineer’s for not disclosing the risks?

My guess is most of the corporate readers would have answered no. You would have preferred the truth when it is a question of your own life being at risk.

Corporate Scenario

So why don’t corporate citizens hesitate when they put other people’s life at risk. See the Bangladesh factory fire, Japan’s nuclear disaster or US banks home foreclosure and mortgage mess. Employees, customers and public lives or life savings were put at risk.

Wouldn’t a few honest risk management reports helped in fixing the problem in time to prevent the disasters?

The corporate world maintains double standards on reporting risks. They want full disclosure of the risks to them but not to others. Before setting these expectations, corporate citizens should answer these questions:

1) Isn’t it a risk manager’s job to identify the health problems of the organization, prescribe a cure, suggest amputation where required and nurse the organization back to health?

2) Is it right to compromise professional ethics and code of conduct to keep a few people happy?

3) Aren’t risk managers responsible for calculating the direct and indirect cost to others for non-disclosure of risks?

4) Shouldn’t risk managers hold their ground and stick to their independent advise as you will benefit from it in the long-run?

Closing Thoughts

Moral courage is one of the most difficult qualities to acquire. Larry Page, as CEO of Google fulfilled his responsibility to the investors by publicly disclosing his medical problems. Now the investors can make an informed decision. One has to admire Page for taking such a difficult call. It takes guts. Disclosing personal weakness makes one feel vulnerable, exposed and fallible. He has shown the path for corporate leaders to follow.

Justin Bieber’s Lesson For Risk Managers

Surfing through Twitter one gets deep insight of human behavior. I am sharing a couple of tweets that got me thinking on our (risk managers) approach. The hat tip goes to Justin Bieber and Mark Robinson for the post.

 1. Get a tribe

 Justin Bieber tweeted the message below and it got 119,562 retweets and 62,959 favorites at the last count.

“Live life full”

— Justin Bieber (@justinbieber) May 10, 2013

Now you might say, what is so original in this message. Nothing remarkable, except that Bieber has 39,087,920 followers.

The message for risk managers is that if we want business team to listen to us, then we need to get a tribe of followers. Sitting in a corner or a cabin, writing reports isn’t going to help us. We need to be on the floor  interacting with the business teams daily.

2. Connect with a popular leader

Then Mark Robinson tweeted this message:

“Justin Bieber got 100,000 retweets for tweeting “Live life full”. That’s just 3 random words. I’m going to try now.

Nipple squirrel ham”

— Mark Robinson (@robboma3) May 11, 2013

The message was retweeted 26,972 times and favorited 4379 times. Mark has 23,694 followers. While Bieber’s message was tweeted by just 0.3% of his followers, Mark’s message was tweeted more than the number of his followers. Isn’t that fascinating.

This is a trick which risk managers need to learn. Even the most mundane message of a popular leader will be followed more ardently than their sanest advise. People don’t follow bosses, they follow leaders whom they like. Hence, risk managers need to identify the popular figures in office, ask them to give their message or link up their own version to the popular person’s message. Risk management advise is going to spread faster then, rather than with all the technical stuff.

I am dedicating Justin’s song to all of you. We need to believe it too – “I got that power”.

Leadership of Dead Bodies, Stones and Flowers

In April, two Air India pilots handed over the controls in auto-pilot mode to two female cabin attendants to take a short nap. They decided that their sleep was more important at 33,000 feet while flying the 160-passenger flight from Bangkok to Delhi. They returned to the cockpit after 40 minutes when one of the cabin attendants accidently knocked off the auto-pilot mode.

The angry Twitterate asked for pilot’s license suspension, removal from job and legal charges for culpable homicide. Everyone questioned their work ethics and shock at their irresponsible behavior. Air India investigated the incident, suspended the pilots and sated that passengers’ safety was never compromised. Unbelievable, how can passengers be safe without any pilots at the helm?

1.     Double Standards in Evaluating Corporate Leaders

 The pilots were crucified for risking the lives of passengers. However, surprisingly the pilots of the corporate world do not suffer the same fate. The wizards and titans of the banking industry crash landed the world economy, but they didn’t lose their CXO seats.

Look from another lens. Did any senior in Supplier Company or the multinationals lose their job in the Bangladesh factory fire? In Foxconn, the Apple contractor, 11 employees committed suicide, four died in an accident and one collapsed after continuously working for 36 hours. However, Steve Jobs was rated as the second most popular leader by the CEOs in a survey conducted by Price Waterhouse Coopers. The first and third were Winston Churchill and Mahatma Gandhi respectively.

Now this is going to rattle my readers but let me say it. Steve Jobs was a great inventor, designer, strategist and marketer. However, when it came to people, his employees considered him rude and manipulative, and his competitors found him uncivil. Though Apple achieved great heights, he paid low salaries to the employees in the Apple stores, paid no dividends to the shareholders, pushed down suppliers to manufacture at lowest possible rate and didn’t believe in charity or corporate social responsibility. His behavior and actions weren’t people centric or humanity oriented. So my question is – do we consider him a great leader because he managed to put Apple on top? That makes him a great CEO, not necessarily a great leader.

2.     Misconceptions of Leadership

 The problem arises due to the definition of leadership. Read the dictionary meaning:

Leadership is “organizing a group of people to achieve a common goal”.

- We don’t focus on how the group of people were gathered; by inspiring them or arm-twisting them.

-  We don’t focus on the nobility of the goal; was it to exploit others or liberate them.

-  We don’t focus on the method adopted to achieve the goal; was it by breaking the rules or a journey of virtue.

In the present world we see leaders leaving dead bodies in their path, walking over people as if they were stones and sucking the life out of them. Great leaders create leaders not followers, they make others blossom like flowers.

Be it a corporate leader or political leader, we don’t wish to question the leadership methods. Our thinking is, how it matters to us, we have nothing to lose. We have everything to lose, and Martin-Niemöller-Foundation words at Hitler’s time still resonate:  

“First they came for the communists,
and I didn’t speak out because I wasn’t a communist.

Then they came for the socialists,
and I didn’t speak out because I wasn’t a socialist.

Then they came for the trade unionists,
and I didn’t speak out because I wasn’t a trade unionist.

Then they came for me,
and there was no one left to speak for me.”

Our own silence will kill us and the society we live in. When humanity is at stake, can we close our eyes and say nothing is at stake.

3.     Leadership Training

The Institute of Strategic Change reported that – “the stock price of ‘well-led‘ companies grew by over 900% over 10 years, compared with 74% for poorly led companies”. Warren Bennis in 1998 said – “The Truth is that no one factor makes a company admirable. But if you were forced to pick the one that makes the most difference, you’d pick leadership.” However, how many companies train on leadership or do a performance evaluation on leadership qualities?

Quite a few would be saying we do it. So let me clarify. In organizations bosses tell the juniors what to do and how to do it. They give rave reviews to the employee who completes the task as they had stated. They promote that employee and now he becomes a boss. At best, he will be a good manager, not a leader.

Corporate world determines success rate by title and salary.  Neither guarantees leadership skills. Employees aim to become a boss, not a leader. The terms are not synonyms.

According to Malcolm Gladwell,  all outliers practiced their talent for over 10,000 hours to achieve greatness.  In the corporate world, how many hours are dedicated by each employee to learn leadership? Learning leadership is a by-product of the main job, till CEO level. Then isn’t it surprising that we do not have many great leaders in the corporate world.

 Closing Thoughts

Maximum damage in the world was caused by people who got powerful positions without good leadership qualities, be it Hitler, Jeff Skilling, Bernie Madoff or Lance Armstrong. The biggest risks in the corporate world are leadership risks. It is the leaders who make the decisions, so unless we have a system of putting the right people in leadership positions we will continue to have these disasters. Hence, our job is to develop good leaders, select good leaders and continuously monitor the leaders.

 Wishing my readers a Happy Mother’s Day. Being parents is the toughest job in the world,. They are responsible for raising the next generation of leaders.

References:

1. Air India Pilots Story  
2. Deaths in Foxconn
3. Price Waterhouse Coopers report on best leaders

 

Human Rights Risk Management Process

The fire in a nine-story factory building in Bangladesh killed 400 people. More than 600 people remain unaccounted for. It housed five garment factories that supplied to international brands – J.C. Penny, The Children’s Place, Dress Barn, Primark, Wal-Mart etc. The workers were asked to come to work even when cracks appeared in the building the previous day.

Bangladesh is the second largest exporter of clothes and the workers get the lowest compensations. Just around USD 37-40 per month. The question arises why are the multinational organizations not following the UN Guiding Principles for Human Rights protection. The reason is simple; they want to show higher and higher profits to the investors.

In Delhi, in Munirka one will find numerous small factories full of workers making export garments. A friend of mine also ran one. I had bought a few shirts from her at cost price ranging from Rs 300-500 (USD 6-10). In one international visit, I found the same shirts selling in range of USD 15-30. The fivefold increase in price was because of the brand tag attached to the shirt.

The multinational buyers push the prices down and some supplier gives a rock bottom price. The others are forced to match that price to get the business. End result is that basic facilities are not provided to the workers and they work at really low wages. Unknown workers are paying with their lives in developing countries to satisfy the growth targets set by CEOs to earn their bonuses and keep investors happy.  It is the dark side of capitalism which organizations want to hide.

In most companies, human rights risk management is not a focus area. The 2013 Global Risk Management Survey conducted by RIMS identified seven risks related to human resources among the top fifty risks. Though worker injury and harassment were included there was no specific emphasis on human rights risk management.

The risk management team can conduct annually or bi-annually a human rights risk management assessment. It requires attention not only from human resources perspective but from operational, financial, legal and reputational risks perspective. Any breach can result in huge losses.

Here are some of the steps mentioned in the UN Guiding Principles on Human Rights and guide “Investing the Right Way” issued by Institute of Human Rights and Business.

1.     Review the Human Rights Policy Statement

Human rights risk management is emerging as an important issue, especially with multinationals entering emerging markets and developing countries. They are expected to protect and respect rights of workers, communities and society. Investors can play a crucial role by influencing companies to promote human rights relating to gender equality, child labor, rights of indigenous people, land acquisition, mineral processing etc.

Hence, companies need to publish Human Rights Policy Statement on their websites. The UN Guiding Principle 16 states –

 “As the basis for embedding their responsibility to respect human rights, business enterprises should express their commitment to meet this responsibility through a statement of policy that:

(a) Is approved at the most senior level of the business enterprise;

(b) Is informed by relevant internal and/or external expertise;

(c) Stipulates the enterprise’s human rights expectations of personnel, business partners and other parties directly linked to its operations, products or services;

(d) Is publicly available and communicated internally and externally to all personnel, business partners and other relevant parties;

(e) Is reflected in operational policies and procedures necessary to embed it throughout the business enterprise.”

As a first step risk managers need to check whether the organization has a human rights policy statement and the above mentioned steps have been adhered to.

2.     Human Rights Impact Assessment

The second aspect of UN Guiding Principles is for companies to establish human rights due diligence processes. Guiding Principle 17 states:

 “In order to identify, prevent, mitigate and account for how they address their adverse human rights impacts, business enterprises should carry out human rights due diligence. The process should include assessing actual and potential human rights impacts, integrating and acting upon the findings, tracking responses, and communicating how impacts are addressed. Human rights due diligence:

(a) Should cover adverse human rights impacts that the business enterprise may cause or contribute to through its own activities, or which may be directly linked to its operations, products or services by its business relationships;

(b) Will vary in complexity with the size of the business enterprise, the risk of severe human rights impacts, and the nature and context of its operations;

(c) Should be on going, recognizing that the human rights risks may change over time as the business enterprise’s operations and operating context evolves.”

Human rights risk management is complex and challenging. If ignored, they can increase political risks and deteriorate relationships of the organization with the government. For example, Tata Motors wished to establish Nano manufacturing plant in Singur, West Bengal. The government allocated agriculture land using 1894 land acquisition rule, meant for public improvement projects, to take over 997 acres farmland. The farmers protested with help of activists and the then opposition leader Mamta Banerjee. Tata Motors moved out of West Bengal and established the factory in Gujarat. Multinationals looking for large tracts of land to establish factories are facing similar challenges in India.

Another aspect to look into is that scrap, waste disposal, sewage, environment pollution etc. from factories can impact food, water and health of local communities.

Decision needs to be taken whether investments should be made in countries or states with poor human rights record. In India, the Naxalite area is extremely conflict prone and business operations can have severe human rights impact.

Risk managers should evaluate the strategy and operations of the company from human rights, environmental, social and governance factors. The companies can face operational risks (project delays or cancellation), legal and regulatory risks (lawsuits and fines) and reputational risks (negative press coverage and brand damage). The impact assessment should be done from investors, customers, employees, society and supplier perspective. Identify business owners for the risks and devise appropriate risk mitigation plans to address adverse impact.

3.   Grievance Mechanisms

UN Guiding Principles state that victims of corporate related human rights abuse should have access to judicial or non-judicial remedies. Companies should provide some remedies themselves and cooperate in the remediation process.

UN Guiding Principle 29 states –

“To make it possible for grievances to be addressed early and remediated directly, business enterprises should establish or participate in effective operational-level grievance mechanisms for individuals and communities who may be adversely impacted.”

However, this isn’t followed by the companies in true spirit. “A Vigieo analysis of human rights records of 1500 companies listed in North America, Europe and Asia revealed that, in the previous three years, almost one in five had faced at least one allegation that it had abused or failed to respect human rights.”

Ideally the investors in the company should ensure that grievance mechanisms exist and address human rights issues. The transparency and disclosure of the same in annual reports would highlight the financial, legal and reputational risks. However, the investors don’t seem to be bothered by it.

See the case of Apple. It reported  Gross Profit Margin – 42.5%, Net Profit Margin – 26.7%, Revenue Per Employee – $ 2,149,835 and Net Revenue Per Employee – $ 573,255. It has 43000 employees in US and 20,000 outside US. However, Apple contractors hire an additional 700,000 people to engineer, build and assemble iPads, iPhones and Apple’s other products.

An Apple supplier in Taiwan, Foxconn was recently in the news for its workers attempting suicide. As per reports “Workers are required to stand at fast-moving assembly lines for eight hours without a break and without talking. Workers, sharing sleeping accommodations with nine other workmates, often do not know each other’s names. They do not have much time to get to know each other. The basic starting pay of 900 RMB($130) a month – barely enough to live on – can be augmented to a more respectable 2,000RMB ($295) only by working 30 hours overtime a week.”

See the difference the company earns per employee and the payment made to the supplier’s employees. Apple shows profits at the expense of lives of Taiwanese workers.  The workers don’t have much of a grievance mechanism in China as the government stated that the suicides are within the normal suicide rate. Can Apple investors sacrifice some profit margin for safety and security of the contractual workers?

Another old example is the class action suit since 2001 on Wal-Mart Stores that involved 1.5 million current and former Wal-Mart female employees. It is the largest workplace bias case in US history.

 4.    Human Rights Reporting

 The biggest challenge is that most of the human rights abuses are not reported. The victims of human rights exploitation hold little power in comparison to the exploiters. They can hardly take up the might of powerful businesses when they are struggling to get basic food and shelter. Secondly, in the developing and emerging countries, corruption levels are generally high. Hence, media, law enforcement agencies etc. are bribed by the power players to silence the victims. However, with internet and social media, things are gradually changing. People have a voice and collectively they can fight.

UN Guiding Principle 21 lays out the requirement for companies to communicate human rights impact externally. It states -

 “In order to account for how they address their human rights impacts, business enterprises should be prepared to communicate this externally, particularly when concerns are raised by or on behalf of affected stakeholders. Business enterprises whose operations or operating contexts pose risks of severe human rights impacts should report formally on how they address them. In all instances, communications should:

(a) Be of a form and frequency that reflect an enterprise’s human rights impacts and that are accessible to its intended audiences;

(b) Provide information that is sufficient to evaluate the adequacy of an enterprise’s response to the particular human rights impact involved;

(c) In turn not pose risks to affected stakeholders, personnel or to legitimate requirements of commercial confidentiality.”

 As per the UN principles, the reports must cover appropriate qualitative and quantitative indicators, feedback from internal and external sources including affected stakeholders.

Risk managers can evaluate the reports and the reporting process to ensure that all risks are properly addressed. They should evaluate whether cautionary steps are taken and nothing is being done to exacerbate the situation. They should highlight severe or irreversible risks to the management to ensure appropriate decisions are taken.

Closing Thoughts

 Inequalities in income are the main cause of human rights abuse. The rich want to get richer at the expense of blood and sweat of the poor, and sometimes life. The diamond manufacturers and sellers took the right step to publish that they do not source blood diamonds. Since 2003, the Kimberley Process Certification Scheme (KPCS), supported by national and international legislation, has sought to certify the legitimate origin of uncut diamonds. Trade organizations – International Diamond Manufacturers Association (IDMA) and the World Federation of Diamond Bourses (WFDB) – representing virtually all significant processors and traders – have established a regimen of self-regulation.

Other industries, be it technology, electronics or textile manufacturers,  need to come out with similar steps to stop human rights abuse. The risk managers have a vital role to play in it. If we do not do anything, we are cheating this and the next generation of their right to live happily.

References:

1.  Investing the Right Way – A Guide for Investors on Business and Human Rights – By Institute of Human Rights and Business
2. Singur farmland-  Tata Motors conflict
3. Apple financial ratios
4. Foxconn Case Study
5. Diamond industry sales clauses
6. 2013 RIMS Global Risk Management Survey

 

Role of Positivity in Risk Management Communication

Can something as simple as appreciation make business teams more willing to accept a risk manager’s viewpoint?

———————————————————————————————–

The Conflict

Proverbially risk managers are locking horns with business managers. Of course business managers out number risk managers, hence more often than not risk managers are licking wounds and complaining that business managers don’t listen to them. Business managers claim that they are running the show, so an interfering risk manager who is perpetually criticizing their hard work  should be shown the door.

Then risk manages lament that it is their job to high light risks which means negatives, so why go after them for being messengers of bad news. The conflict brews and sometimes reaches boiling point. No one wishes to see eye to eye because they wish to get eye for an eye. End result, the business suffers in this battle.

What is the cause of the stormy relationship? Criticism and negative feedback! No one likes it, so why blame the business managers.

What if risk managers change the approach? With the criticism they give a lot of positive reinforcement? Will the behavior of business managers change?

Research on Role of Positivity in Performance

Marcial Losada and Emily Heaphy conducted a research titled – “The Role of Positivity and Connectivity in the Performance of Business Teams – A Nonlinear Dynamics Model”. They studied the dynamics of team interaction in relation to approving and disapproving verbal feedback statements. Researchers coded the verbal communication among team members along three bipolar dimensions, positivity/negativity, inquiry/advocacy, and other/self. Sixty teams developing annual business strategy were analysed.

The results of the study have extremely important implications  from business performance aspect and for risk managers. The table below defines the ratios of various dimensions.

The positivity/ negativity ratios indicate that high performing teams give 5.6 positive comments to 1 negative comment. In contrast the low performing team give three negative comments to one positive comment. The medium performing teams give approximately two positive comments to one negative comment.

Similarly, under inquiry/advocacy ratios, the high performance teams are more balanced in their approach towards inquiry and advocacy. The team members question in an exploratory way. On the other hand, low performance teams are highly unbalanced and members advocate their own viewpoint. The medium performance teams are little bit tilted in favor of advocacy.

Again, high performance maintained a balance in discussing internal and external aspects. Whereas, low performance teams focus on internal inquiry. The medium performance are slightly more focused on internal than external aspects.

Thus, the high performance team have higher levels of connectivity, which results in better performance.

Overall, high performing teams show buoyancy throughout the meeting. They appreciate, compliment and encourage their team members. This expands the emotional space for team to function. In contrast, in low performance teams sarcasm and cynicism rules which restricts the emotional space. There is lack of mutual support, enthusiasm and a high degree of distrust.  The medium performance team don’t show distrust or cynicism but neither are they openly supportive and enthusiastic about their team members.

Implications for Risk Managers

The results are very important from a risk manager’s perspective. As the author states – “to do powerful inquiry, we need to put ourselves sympathetically in the place of the person to whom we are asking the question. There has to be as much interest in the question we are asking as in the answer we are receiving. If not, inquiry can be motivated by a desire to show off or to embarrass the other person, in which case it will not create a nexus with that team member.”

Hence, from the time we approach the business team, we need to ensure that we are inquiring about the business. We should not be advocating any quick recommendations based on high-level interactions.

Another point to note is that the questions should cover both the internal and external environment of the business. This would motivate the business team into a more open discussion.

The most important point is about positive feedback. In our verbal communication and written reports we focus on highlighting the negatives.

The research showed that positive comments (that is a terrific idea) create emotional space within the listener, hence the listener is more willing to take the feedback. The emotional space created by positive comments in high performing teams is twice the size of medium performing teams and three times that of low performing teams.

Negative reporting restricts the emotional space of the business team. To build a positive environment for acceptance of our views, recommendations and report, we need to give 6 positive comments for each negative comment.

The researchers have given equations to assess the emotional space based on various dimensions. It might be a good idea to calculate the same before issuing a report.

Closing thoughts

One of the incorrect assumptions that risk managers make is that there is a linear relationship between the observations and recommendations in the report. However, the study showed the impact of non-linear relationships on functioning of teams. Hence, the fault may lie in the straight forward cause and effect attitude taken by risk managers to get buy-in from business managers.

We generally discuss that in reports we should highlight the positives first to balance out the negatives. This research clearly points out the importance of doing so and the reasons why we are failing. We have to change our approach to be effective. We need to be part of the business team, develop a positive feedback system before giving any negative observations

References:

The Role of Positivity and Connectivity in the Performance of Business Teams: A Nonlinear Dynamics Model - Marcial Losada and Emily Heaphy

Employee Selection and Background Screening in Ancient India

Would it be fair to assume most of us believe that employee selection and background screening processes were formed in the 20^th century? Do you think soft skill evaluation of employees is the latest management mantra? Will it come as a surprise that in India these were formed in 4^th Century BC?

Kautilya’s Arthshastra, written in 4^th  century BC, lays down rigorous process for selection and background screening for ministers, priests and government employees. It is more extensive than that employed in the present-day corporate world. I am doing a comparison of the two below. After reading, tell me whether we have progressed or deteriorated in 25 centuries.

1.      Selection Process

Let us first see the qualities senior level people require according to Kautilya:

“Native, born of high family, influential, well trained in arts, possessed of foresight, wise, of strong memory, bold, eloquent, skilful, intelligent, possessed of enthusiasm, dignity, and endurance, pure in character, affable, firm in loyal devotion, endowed with excellent conduct, strength, health and bravery, free from procrastination and fickle mindedness, affectionate, and free from such qualities as excite hatred and enmity–these are the qualifications of a ministerial officer (amátyasampat).”

If you look at them, he covers intelligence, professional capability, personal character, strategic thinking, emotional intelligence, social and business connections, soft skills and physical fitness. In the 21^st century words and terminologies are different, but attributes are the same. Hence, not much change.

2. Background Verification Process

Now I am giving a table below comparing the two period’s process of background verification. For detailed methodology of the current period refer to my article – Pre-employment Background Verification.

Doesn’t it make you think? Over 25 centuries, the basic concept and process of selection and background verification has remained more or less the same. However, Kautilya’s selection process doesn’t stop here. He mentions a few additional processes and I am amazed at the insight.

3. Detailed Character Verification

In the Arthshastra, Kautilya asks to ascertain the character of employees by offering temptations and instigating them against the king. Senior level ministers and priests should attempt to lure the employee to test him for four allurements- religious, monetary, love and fear. He suggests creating situations to test whether the employee will defy the king for the sake of religion, money, sex or under threat. Then he states, that whosoever is lured by a certain aspect, should not be in-charge of it. For example, if someone fails the test of monetary allurement, he should not be responsible for managing finance. The tests were conducted to ensure that people in critical positions were incorruptible.

In present times, we select senior managers on various aspects but their loyalty and character aren’t as thoroughly checked as in the ancient times. In my view, quite a significant number will fail Kautilya’s tests for “purity of character”. How many CEOs check whether their direct reports will betray them for bribes and rewards?

Closing thoughts

In India, around 25% candidates submit false or inaccurate resumes. The background screening processes aren’t fully established in most of the organizations. With high risks of hiring terrorists, hackers and fraudsters the organizations are susceptible to financial, legal and reputation risks. Isn’t it surprising that even after 25 centuries the process and procedures aren’t fully implemented.

We now say we are living in a fast changing world. So, do you think background-screening processes will become efficient in this century, if they haven’t changed in 25 centuries?

Indian Attitude Towards Time – A Strength In Future

We Indians jokingly refer arriving late for a meeting as arriving ISD (Indian Standard Time). However, if you, my reader, are an Indian, you would have heard a question from a western colleague – “Why are Indians late for meetings?” If you are a westerner, you desperately want to know the answer to bring your stress down and figure out whether the Indians actually want to do business with you. However, whether you are an Indian or a westerner, have you ever thought of Indian attitude to time as a strength in the future chaotic world?

Let me delve into a little bit of detail before I answer that. The attitude towards time divides people into two cultures – monochronic people and polychronic people. According to Wikipedia the definitions are:

Monochronic – A monochronic time system, people do things one at a time and segment time into precise, small units. Under this system, time is scheduled, arranged and managed.

Polychronic – In polychronic time system, people do several things simultaneously, and take a more fluid approach to scheduling time.

Indians follow the polychronic time system whereas most of the western countries believe in monochronic time systems. The general perception is that people following monochronic time system are better organized. Hence, monochronic system is superior.

1. Attributes of the two cultures

Below is a table of attributes the people of two cultures show with the current business buzzwords and applicability to Indians. Check it out and tell me whether Indians attitude towards time is going to be strength in future?

No	Monochronic People	Polychronic People	Buzzwords	Applicability to Indians
1	Do one thing at a time	Do many things at once	Single task v/s Multitasking	Multitasking
2	Concentrate on the job	Can be easily distracted and manage interruptions well	Single task v/s Multitasking	Multitasking
3	Take time commitments seriously	Consider an objective to be achieved, if possible	Task oriented v/s goal oriented	Goal oriented
4	Are low context and need information	Are high context and already have information	Direct orders V/s Subtle communication	Subtle communication
5	Are committed to the job	Are committed to people and human relationships	Task oriented v/s people oriented,	People oriented
6	Adhere religiously to plans	Change plans often and easily	Predicted & scheduled v/s Chaotic & complex(Fixed project schedules v/s Flexible planning)	Chaotic & complex
7	Are concerned about not disturbing others; follow rules of privacy and consideration	Are more concerned with those who are closely related than privacy	Individual V/s social communities(Privacy and security v/s social networks and internet)	Social communities
8	Show great respect for private property; seldom borrow or lend	Borrow and lend things often and easily	Ownership v/s credit lending	Credit lending
9	Emphasize promptness	Base promptness on the relationship	Time v/s relationship	Relationship
10	Are accustomed to short-term relationships	Have strong tendency to build lifetime relationships	Transactional relationships v/s Long-term relationships	Long-tern relationship

2. Link with current management trends

Now let us discuss the latest management mantras:

a)    Impact of  technology

Advancement in technology and telecommunications has globally connected the world with little segregation possible in work and home life. Managers do multiple tasks now and Gen Y are mentally geared to do so from childhood.

Advantage – India: Indians traditionally do multiple tasks and have a huge population of Gen Y.

b)    Effect of  globalization

Globalization and outsourcing has ensured that managers are not physically available on site to monitor tasks. Secondly, work-life balance is encouraging more people to work from home. Hence, success depends on delivering results and not on completing tasks.

Advantage – India: Indians do not have mindset for process adherence and adopt flexible approaches to achieve targets.

3)    Influence of social networking

In the age of social networking, communication is taking center stage.  Senior managers face the challenge of communicating with a global workforce of different cultures.

Advantage - India: Indian communication style is subtle, layered and non-aggressive.

4)    Demands due to complexity of business 

The space of change in the world has increased due to technology and globalization. The business environment has become complex and chaotic. The long-term planning is not possible because parameters change in a short time.

Advantage – India: Indians managers are used to dealing with adversity and chaos. They are comfortable working delivering results with minimum infrastructure and support.

5)    Finding meaning in relationships

The western organizations have realized that in the long run transactional relationships result in dysfunctional organization culture and reduce customer loyalty.

Advantage – India: Indians believe in long-term relationships even in business. They conduct business after establishing trust and respect in the relationship.

Closing thoughts

I do not know whether I am on the right track. Nevertheless, in my opinion we definitely need to relook, as the risks are high. For instance, presently the western organizations are developing their organization structure, processes and framework according to monochronic thinking. On the other hand, as the business environment requires polychronic behaviour, there is going to be clash in the system. Employees will be confused and unnecessary conflicts will occur. That results only in one thing – lower profits and higher risks.

In Indian organizations, we need to be clear that we do not adopt behavior patterns and change the culture according to our perceptions. We need data and analysis to assess the culture that will be suitable in future. It is possible, that a polychronic culture is better.

Participative Leadership Originated In 4th Century BC In India

My last post on Indian Management Model generated a common comment – “India already has a management model where obedience to the boss comes first!” That is the common perception so I decided to delve deeper into the subject. Where did the authoritarian style of leadership come from in India?

The common perception of modern day CEO was that a CEO had all the answers. He was all knowing same as the prior period kings. In this century, the management mantra is that CEOs don’t have all the answers and should have the ability to ask the right questions. They need inputs from all to form decisions. Therefore, the shift clearly is towards participative leadership style.

After some research, I found that authoritarian leadership style originated from the Greek terminology “autocratic leadership”. My view is that Indian history is full of examples of participative leadership. Let me explain this viewpoint further.

In Ramayana, the main characters considered obedience a virtue. However, Buddha propagated the view – question everything, don’t take anything at face value. Subsequently Mahabharata is full of characters doing exactly as they please, breaking all the rules and getting into a lot of trouble. In it, Krishna asks Arujuna to fight his teacher Dronacharya, his elders, most of his relatives and friends since they were supporting unethical Dhurypdhana.

Further, Kautilya’s Arthshastra gives a full process for the king to take decisions after consulting his ministers, officials and public where required. He discussed participative leadership in 4^th century BC. Surprised! Let me share his thoughts with you.

1.     Discuss with ministers and employees

The king shall deliberate over matters with a number of people as required. It states that “No deliberation made by a single person will be successful; the nature of the work which a sovereign has to do is to be inferred from the consideration of both the visible and invisible causes.”

2.     Obtain outside counsel

It further mentions that discussions should not be restricted to ministers and their direct reports. The king “shall sit at deliberation with persons of wide intellect.” Hence, it discusses the concept of consultation from people outside the ministry.

3.     Encourage constructive confrontation

Next, the Arthshastra mentions that the king should hear all opinions even contrary to his. It states – “He shall despise none, but hear the opinions of all. A wise man shall make use of even a child’s sensible utterance.”

4.     Selection of advisers

Then Arthshastra states that king should not select people on a random basis or those who have no clear idea of the execution of work required. It states -“He shall consult such persons as are believed to be capable of giving decisive opinion regarding those works about which he seeks for advice”. Hence, qualification and knowledge of advisers is a prerequisite.

5.     Opinions of competitors

Kautilya does not suggest that advice should be sought from friends and allies alone. He states – “nor shall he (king) sit long at consultation with those whose parties he intends to hurt.” Hence, getting competitive information and viewpoints hasn’t been ruled out.

6.     Number of advisers

Kautilya advises that in the normal course of business the king should discuss with 3-4 ministers. He states that discussing with one minister is useless, as he will advise “ willfully and without restraint”. Discussing with two would not help as “the king may be overpowered by their combined action, or imperiled by their mutual dissension”. Discussing with too many minsters will cause a great deal of trouble and slow down the process.  I think Kautilya has adequately covered modern day challenges of selecting advisers.

7.     Method of discussion

Last but not the least, Kautilya defines that the king should choose to hold a collective meeting or individual interactions depending on the situation. In his words – “The king may ask his ministers for their opinion either individually or collectively, and ascertain their ability by judging over the reasons they assign for their opinions.”

Closing thoughts

Kautiliya comprehensively covered most of the aspects of participative leadership in his Arthshastra.  Authoritarian leadership appears a western concept and not an Indian concept as is commonly believed. The style took major hold during industrial revolution. With globalization and increasing complexity of business, participative leadership is gaining ground. Concepts of collective intelligence and crowd sourcing are garnering strength.

Moreover, the main concept of Hinduism is – everything that is created is destroyed and everything that is destroyed is recreated. If it is true, then history repeats itself. Then isn’t it better to understand the historic management concepts and learn from them.

Lastly, in the creation of new world order, nothing is sacrosanct. In words of Jalaluddin Rumi – Don’t be satisfied with stories, how things have gone with others. Unfold your own truth.

References:

1. Arthshastra by Kautilya