R. Gopalakrishnan talks about leadership, the Tata way of doing business, and more

R. Gopalakrishnan is known to be one of the most aggressive marketing and branding brains in the country. Mergers and acquisitions form another part of his extensive repertoire. Ever since he joined Tata Sons as executive director in 1998, this former HLL vice-chairman, along with Kishor Chaukar and Ishaat Hussain, has been part of the Group Executive Office (GEO) set up by chairman Ratan Tata to chart the future course of the Tata Group.

Here he explains why the Tatas don't believe in running away from public spats, and what the group expects of its leaders.

Why do controversies dog the Tatas for the wrong reasons? Don't you think they hurt the perception of the Tata Group as very ethical and honest?
Let me address one of these 'controversial' areas — what critics have called 'public spats'. People might say we were defensive. If you run a conglomerate with 2,35,000 people, you can give everybody the message that they have to be clean and honest, but you cannot assure it.

You don't run a police force to keep a watch on people; you have to work on trust. The Tatas like to trust their managers. If you call that a weakness, that would be kind of a travesty, although cynics may call it a weakness — this trusting people too much. You trust and make people accountable; this is the mantra of every management.

But do you think the Tatas managed the situations well?
Have the Tatas done it perfectly? Certainly not; no corporation has. Once in a while you get a leader who is misguided. But the thing about Mr Ratan Tata is that he believes that if it has happened, it has happened. You face up to it.

The natural tendency is to push it under the carpet and cover it up. And 'manage' the situation. I am not saying that every such event has to be debated in the public domain. But if the managing director of a large company is involved in such matters, it is very difficult to keep it private. We have a saying in Tamil: you cannot hide a pumpkin in the rice.

I am making a point about this because it is tempting to play it down. In this country no controversy gets resolved. Even in cricket, there is match fixing and God knows what's really happening. But look at South Africa and Hansie Cronje. It was spotted, swiftly resolved and everything is back to normal now. In India it does not work that way. But the Tatas are different. And I see it as a great merit of the Tata brand and the Tata way of doing things — that you are man enough to face up to an unfortunate episode.

Mr Tata still says, "I will continue to trust my managers, but when they lose my trust I will go after them." It takes a lot of trust to be appointed a leader. I see greatness of character in this admission that once in a while things will and do go wrong. Don't push it under the carpet; deal with it. Very few large corporations in India do this in practice. I will not use any names.

Is leadership changing?
We are already witnessing that change in the form of distributive leadership, and not the command-and-control type of leadership that the Tatas were always perceived to have. The future requires more distributed leadership. Business has to be conducted like an orchestra; it cannot be like a soloist playing a violin. It is very difficult to manage an orchestra. It requires a change in mindset.

What about new faces and young blood?
The first good thing that has already happened is that the Tatas have got senior people from outside. The human resources function has been recognised as a group function with a separate office. People like Prasad Menon and Homi Khusrokhan have joined Tata Chemicals and Tata Tea respectively.

The second stage is getting senior people from overseas. This is already happening, with Dr V. Sumantran joining Tata Engineering from General Motors, Rahul Chowdhury from British Telecom joining Tata Power, and Satish Pradhan from ICI coming to Tata Sons.

Some of these people have been recruited by design and some by accident, but there has been a method to the madness. We are as clear about getting new and younger people as we are about smooth succession planning. Look at Tata Steel, Voltas, Tata Power and Titan.

How do new CEOs manage to balance the interests of individual companies and the group?
The question is: is it possible for a human being to combine two roles — being a CEO of a company and also being a responsible member of the group? The trick lies in avoiding areas where there is a win-lose, lose-win or lose-lose situation.

There is a way in which he spots group opportunities. Nobody will want to centralise the purchase of rubber bands in the group, but if someone says let's centralise the purchase of computers there is enough reason to consider the proposition. The art lies in finding a win-win situation. I don't see any conflict, and where there is a conflict you, perhaps, don't pursue that agenda. Every international management has to follow this.

The biggest suspense in the market has been over when the largest software services company in Asia will go public.
Our view is to do it at the right time, when the value to the stakeholders can be maximised. Many people will say that we were foolish not to list TCS. Then again, you can also say how clever we are to keep holding on to it. There are always two ways to look at it. We will do it when the time is right.

Other companies have gone public because they need the money. Such is not the case with TCS. You don't just raise money without a really good purpose. When we have one, we will consider the proposition.

What makes the Tatas different from other Indian groups?
You will never be asked to do something that is remotely unethical, or will cause you loss of sleep. It is rare, and most valuable, in my view.