It would seem that Indian managers will at last get due recognition abroad with the release of Wharton Business School professor Michael Useem’s The India Way: How India’s Top Business Leaders Are Revolutionizing Management.
The book, co-authored by Peter Cappelli, Harbir Singh and Jitendra Singh, brings several aspects of Indian management styles to the notice of the western reader.
In an interview to this paper, Useem has identified several aspects of what he considers to be the unique elements of the Indian way of doing things.
One of them is ‘jugaad,’ which essentially has negative connotations in the Indian context, since it means a “makeshift” solution. But the American professor sees it as a virtue where Indians are able to get things done with limited resources.
There is an element of truth here, but is it entirely a good thing? In most cases, ‘jugaad’ connotes subversion and circumvention and this may be a necessary part of survival in an economy where the system often works against you.
However, there is a big difference between somehow managing to do things, and striving for excellence.
As opposed to the ‘jugaad’, there is the Japanese way of meticulous effort and attention to detail, as represented by the Toyota production system. Toyota may be temporarily discredited due to some egregious errors, but for the last few decades, customers swore by Toyota quality.
That the Americans are looking to the Indian way is as much a tribute to the Americans as it is to the Indians.
When in trouble, the Americans are always searching for alternate models and it does not matter where it comes from.
They turned to the Japanese when Japan gained an upper hand in manufacturing, and they are now turning to India to manage things in times of constraint.
Perhaps the real lesson could be that in a world of limited resources, there is need to manage with less rather than with more. Many automobile companies have been mesmerised by the Nano’s frugal engineering.
The other virtue that Useem detects in the Indian corporate culture is the desire to reach out to a larger number of people, and make things accessible to them, as in the case of keeping the prices of mobile phones and cars reasonably low.
It is shrewd business strategy rather than altruism, as there’s a fortune at the bottom of the pyramid where volumes count for more than margins.
The Americans will draw their own lessons from the Indian experience, but Indians will have to guard against accepting those conclusions uncritically. We have to evolve our own criteria of success and excellence.
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