Why indian businessmen do not speak their mind

Why indian businessmen do not speak their mind

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  Why Indian BusinessmenDo Not Speak Their Mind Even the emergence of social media has not tempted Indian businessmen to go public with their opinion, writes Dibeyendu Ganguly
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  Contd… On April 26,as the West Bengal ele c t ion s wer e u nder way, Harsh Goenka, chairman of RPG Group, tweeted: “In pri vate conversations all busi nessmen in Bengal tell me that they will vote for BJP or CPM. TMC has not been conducive for industry.“ TMC is Trinamul Congress (TMC), the ruling party. Goenka is quite active on Twitter and is given to making controversial tweets. But this particular tweet created a huge furore in Kolkata. The Goenka name still carries a lot of heft in the state and Goenka's brother Sanjiv is a known TMC ally. But soon, Goenka was forced to beat a hasty retreat, tweeting a disclaimer of sorts: “Trinamul is certain to win the elections anyway.“The episode has in no way dampened Goenka's enthusiasm for Twitter. But he has turned cautious. “I now try and keep it light,“ he says. “You have to be careful you don't say things on Twitter that can be misconstrued or blown out of proportion.“ Indians businessmen have always expressed lively opinions in private. Rarely do they make those opinions public.When they do and there is a hullabaloo, they `clarify' their statements, as Goenka did. Even industry lobbies are careful with statements on what they make of government decisions.
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  Contd… Message in aThrottle In recent years, socia l media has emerged as a public sounding board. Has that effected a change in the guardedness of our business leaders? Can we expect them to finally become outspoken? Anand Mahindra, chairman of the Mahindra group, says Twitter is certainly giving business leaders a powerful new tool with which to express their views. “But I'm not sure if that has made them more outspoken. That would depend more on their personality type, management style and the organisational culture.“ Kunal Shah, founder of Freecharge, is a start-up CEO who relishes the social media culture. “Young people listen to leaders who are transparent, not opaque,“ he says. “We startups are transparent because we go through so much scrutiny from our financiers. Traditional company CEOs, on the other hand, fear a backlash if they're transparent.
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  Contd… But how canwe ever bring change if we don't talk about larger issues?“ Social media is not the only medium to express views. When Apple CEO Tim Cook decided to take a stand against the Religious Freedom Law in the US state of Indiana last year, he wrote an op-ed article in the Washington Post. Back home, Infosys-founder N R Narayana Murthy recently used an event at the Indian School of Business to deliver a scathing indictment of his industry, saying Indian software companies are immigration agents. Rashesh Shah, chairman of Edelweiss Financial Services, still prefers expressing his opinions through traditional media. “When you talk to a newspaper or TV journalist, you know who the audience is. When you type something out on Twitter and send it out into the world, you don't know who will read it. It makes me uncomfortable,“ he says. Shah too has so far avoided socio-politi cal subjects that might land him in a controversy. “Twenty years ago, I was more strident in my views, but then nobody was interested in what I had to say anyway.Now I've realised that stridency only detracts from communication and I avoid it.“
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  Contd… Indians are hypersensitive, according to Shah. “We believe that anyone who doesn't agree with us is against us.“ That explains why India's biggest business houses -the Tatas, Birlas and Ambanis --have yet to embrace the culture of outspokenness, or even express opinion publicly. There are exceptions. Rahul Bajaj, chairman of Bajaj Auto, is a great example. At 78, he remains as combative as ever. “My grandfather, my father, my brother all spoke out on the issues of their day and so did I. My sons have a different temperament. They don't have that much interest in social issues yet,“ he says. Fear of Reprisal Bajaj was one of the most outspoken presidents of the industry lobby CII and fellow industrialists frowned on his public comments. “Nothing bad ever happened to me because I was outspoken,“ he says.“But some others needed favours from the government, so they didn't want me to rock the boat. Today, the atmosphere has become worse. There's an impression that anyone who speaks against the government with have to contend with a CBI inquiry or an income tax raid.“
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  Contd… The city ofPune, which Bajaj calls home, has bred quite a few outspoken industrialists. Anu Aga, chairman of Thermax, an independent member of the Upper House of Parliament, has often raised her voice against intolerance.She says it's personal. “I lost my husband and son in quick succession. The worst that could happen to me had already happened. After that, I've lived by the courage of my convictions.“ When society is polarired and the issue is divisive, does taking a stand harm the CEO's business? There is also the fear of re prisal from politicians that Bajaj alludes to. Tim Cook's LGBT cause inspi red Professor Aaron Chatterji of Duke University's Fuqua School of Business to research the effect a CEO's activism has on his or her company. “Getting involved in potentially controversial social issues, not directly related to the bottom line, is not part of the CEO's job description. But the concept of corporate neutrality may be getting outdated,“ he says.
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  Contd… The Power ofCEO Activism, a research paper co-authored by Chatterji with Harvard Business School's Michael Toffel, concludes that speaking out benefits the CEO and the company -and the cause. “policymakers do pay attention to what business leaders think. CEOs are respected because they understand the economy, lead large organisations, and make difficult decisions every day,“ says Chatterji. Shankar Sharma, vice-chairman of First Global, uses Twitter to comment on everything from a restaurant he dined at to the state of the markets. “It gives you the option of addressing a wider range of topics. I get trolled for some of my liberal ideas, but I never block them. I give it back,“ he says. That's another problem -dealing with trolls on social media. CEOs have developed his own coping strategy. Goenka was bombarded with hate mail after he tweeted against the Maharashtra beef ban, but he chose not to respond. Mahindra too has had to contend with trolls. “If I receive criticism for my views, I try to engage with that person to understand his point of view,“ he says. “With open platforms like Twitter there is bound to be a diversity of opinions, both positive and negative.“
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  For Details andAppointment contact:- Parveen Kumar Chadha… THINK TANK (Founder and C.E.O of Saxbee Consultants & Other-Mother marketingandcommunicationconsultants.com) Email :[email protected] Mobile No. +91-9818308353 Address:-First Floor G-20(A), Kirti Nagar, New Delhi India Postal Code-110015