Reliance ADAG Session

Speaker: Rajeev Bhadauria, President HR, Reliance -ADAG

Theme: What is General Management?

 

It was our privilege to have as guest speaker, Mr. Rajeev Bhadauria, President HR, Reliance –ADAG. Reliance ADAG was the biggest recruiter for the class of 2008 and going by the words of Mr. Bhadauria the statistics might stay for our batch as well.

On the request of the GMC core, Mr. Bhadauria set out to define what General Management is, what is expected of General Managers and what do we need to have it in us to be successful General Managers.

He started with the concept of Modernity. Modernity is a concept and has nothing to do with the idea of time. There have been modern people in ancient times. History is filled up with examples like Mahatma Gandhi, Albert Einstein who were much ahead of their times. These were the people who saw the forest rather then counting the trees. Being contemporary is not modern. Modernity is systematic; it is a sigma of a lot of attributes which help us get flexibility and adaptability. He defined the twin pillars of modernity as

Scientific Temper and Humanism. Humanism means looking at technology with a human angle.

The concept of Management doesn’t exist any more! Yes this is what Mr. Bhadauria went on to illustrate. Management is about managing processes, people and technology. In the 50s and the 60s managers did try to manage people but this is no more of a reality today. Motivating people has become a thing of past. Inspiration is what has come to stay. Who want to be led? We all want to lead by no one else but ourselves. This is where the paradigm shift happens from motivational management to inspirational leadership. Motivating factors of the past, like Salary, offices, good work life have become hygiene factors today. They are taken for granted and assumed to be given. The externality driven motivation has given way to the internality driven inspiration.

 

Why this change from motivation to inspiration? Management has become a programmed process but these are not enough to deal with today’s complexities. We need the ability to grapple with this accelerating pace of change. Around 1998 we faced a much talked about issue called the Y2K, globalization lead to development of internet. The next shift was towards ERPs and enterprise solutions leading to concept of virtual organizations. Today we are observing a shift from those virtual organizations to Agile organizations. We need to be agile, trying to make an attempt to grapple with this premise of complexities that we are facing. Steady state paradigms are a thing of past. Settlement is a myth that is always wanted and desired. But is it possible?

 

So the million dollar question is: How do you keep yourself prepared to meet this continuous change paradigm?

 

The paradigm has shifted from the phenomenon of effectiveness to greatness. Hence, today we talk not about management per se but leadership, leadership not as a hierarchy but leadership as a concept. GM means leadership in a contemporary context.

 

Driving customer value, nurturing talent, developing collaborative partnerships, robust planning, managing change, are all leadership traits.

What is leadership? None of us have any role except being business leaders.

It can be better explained by the story of two roads – one all trodden and the other less trodden pioneering road. Leaders question paradigms, Conventional wisdom. They follow the road less trodden. The choice we have to make is between mediocrity and greatness. It’s about how do you learn to be creative and how do you learn to be different. How do you learn to think out of the box?

 

 

How do you define General Management?

General Management cannot be framed in a set of words to give it a definition. In order to understand General Management we need to look from the perspective of roles of a General Manager. Mr. Bhadauria classified general management in 4 important role categories:

1. Analyst
2. Intervention Specialist
3. Change Manager
4. Evaluator

 

The concept of domain specialists has lost its meaning, the domains themselves are changing so fast that it is not expected of anyone to be a domain specialist, says Mr. Bhadauria. So what have become important are the roles like mentioned above which a general manager needs to carry out day in and out in whichever domain possible. There are certain abilities that we need to have to perform these roles.