What would have happened if Lehman Brothers was Lehman Sisters?
Baroness Sandip Verma, UK's minister of energy & climate change, while addressing a function on women entrepreneurs by Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (Ficci) on Thursday said it would have saved the world of the financial crisis of 2008.
A vociferous advocate of better representation of women at middle, higher and board levels of a company, Baroness Verma believes including women in corporate decisions can prop up balance sheets of companies.
Taking a cue from her, Dr Subhash Chandra, chairman of Essel Group and ZEE, now wants to experiment with one of his six companies by making its board "all-women".
"What I have learned today from Baroness Verma is that if a company board has more women, its profitability improves. So, I am going to experiment with one of my companies by having only women on its board," he said.
Dr Chandra enumerated the qualities in entrepreneurs of family-run businesses that have stood them in good stead and helped them sail over bad times.
First of all, he said, these entrepreneurs created jobs along with creating wealth. And then they gave back to the society after meeting their requirements.
According to him, typically wealth of a business house was apportioned into six parts by setting aside half of it in equal portions for meeting company expenditures, contingencies and family needs and remaining 50% was divided equally between taxes to the state, religion and society.
Then, businessmen with tenacity to weather all kinds crisis, were big risk takers.
"Whenever these people face difficulties in their lives - financial downturn or any other crisis – they have weathered it head on. They never shied away from it, but faced them honourably and with equanimity," he said.
The media baron, who grew up in a village, feels persistence to follow a task through separated the men from boys in the business world.
"They do not take no for an answer. They find a solution to every no (that they encounter). It may be long journey. It may be difficult one but they keep at it," he said
Dr Chandra said had it not been for his persistence, his TV business would have died long back. According to him, keeping the purpose of the business alive was essential be a long run player. Next, goal of Zee group was to reach viewership of 1.4 billion by 2020 and become one of the largest media houses in the world.
Another attribute for survival of family business was keeping close to the roots and never letting its memories fade.
Dr Chandra said not letting the headiness of power get to you also ensured longevity of family businesses.
"I say absolute power corrupts. What it does is it corrupts your brain cells that supresses your rational thinking and we have seen it happen. Mrs Indira Gandhi, during emergency – because of the advisors she was surrounded by – censored print media. The result was she lost the election very badly because she did not know the ground reality which the media gives (in the newspapers)," he said.
Dr Chandra said uplifting the lives of downtrodden also kept family houses going for years.
"We still have 400 million people who are not consumers. If all of us get together and bring their level up, we will create another 400 million people as consumers of products and services you and me produce and sell. So, it is in my selfish interest to bring those people up rather than saying I have done job a great work (by uplifting them)," he said.
Another big quality, he said, was absence of ego and arrogance in these family business houses that go on forever.
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