BOOK REVIEW

Matt Barney (2010). Leadership@Infosys (New Delhi: Penguin Portfolio Books), pp. 226, Rs. 699, (h/b), ISBN 978-0-670-08495-1.

Introduction

Infosys Technologies is one of India’s best known IT companies; it has generated a lot of attention in both business academia and in the business media. A number of cases have been written about Infosys in both Indian and Western business schools. The company itself is modeled on the idea of a learning organization and is highly regarded for the quality of both its training and leadership programs. But this is probably the first time that so many Infoscians have got together to formalize the different aspects of leadership that have made Infosys what it is. What then is the secret of the astonishing success of Infosys? How did this company come out of nowhere and become synonymous not only with the IT sector, but also with corporate governance in a country where it is difficult to do business ethically? What, to put it simply, is the secret of its team-based model of leadership? How are we to explain the enormous success that it has had in matters pertaining to succession planning? These then are some of the questions that spring to a reader’s mind when he peruses this anthology of essays on the different aspects of leadership that is both espoused and practiced at Infosys. This book has been edited by Matt Barney, who is in charge of the Infosys Leadership Institute. Barney has also contributed a number of essays in addition to editing this book; he is, quite simply, the animating spirit behind this book. What is interesting about this book is that it will appeal not only to Infoscians, but also to all those who are interested in learning from the exemplary intellectual, financial, and social success of the IT sector as a whole. This is an important achievement of Infosys as a company since it is not only a ‘bellwether’ stock, but synonymous with the sense of socio-economic possibility that it has unleashed in the Indian middle-class. In addition to N.R. Narayana Murthy, its legendary founder, all the members of the founding team have become household names in this country, and have

taken their turn in leading the company without compromising on its core values and ethical principles.

Strategy and Leadership

What Barney and the contributors of this book set out to do is to explain how all this came about in just three decades. In addition to Barney’s essays, the book can also boast of a foreword by Narayana Murthy and Kris Gopalakrishnan and an epilogue by T.V. Mahendra Pai. This is then an ‘authorized’ volume of essays that not only captures the main themes that constitute the strategic approach of Infosys as a company, but also discusses the necessary interplay of strategy and leadership in making the company special. This anthology can also be seen as a contribution to knowledge management since managing effectively what it has already learned over the years is a part of the attempt at formalizing the different types and styles of leadership at Infosys. There will probably be more books like this in the years to come as a part of the research projects underway at the Infosys Leadership Institute. The over-all impression created by this book is the need to adopt a rational approach to problem solving by not only deploying the analytic skills of the employees, but by also being constantly on the lookout for the tool sets, metrics, frameworks and theories that are available in the academic literature on strategy and leadership. The term ‘leadership’ is understood, for instance, as a range of skill sets deployed by its leadership teams rather than as synonymous with any particular leader. This can be described as an inclusive attempt to not only train employees but also to learn from them and roll out these learnings across the company as a whole.

Structure of the Book

There are nine chapters in the book. It starts with an introduction by T.S. Sree Kumar who explains the history of the company, including the period of struggle in the period before liberalization, and the breakthroughs that happened in the aftermath of liberalization. His account is also an attempt to understand how Murthy and his co-founders set up a value system to

which they have been able to hold on to across the years, the difficulties that the company experienced in financing its operations in the early years, the transition from being an Indian to a global company, the listing in NASDAQ, and the setting up of campuses in Bangalore, Mysore, and elsewhere. This is followed by an essay by Matt Barney and Siddharth Patnaik on what sort of metrics are required to evaluate the effectiveness of leadership practices. The basic question in contention here is whether it is possible to objectively measure the effectiveness of leaders, and, if so, how? The approach that Barney and Patnaik are selling is called the Rasch Model; it is based on the work of a Danish mathematician named Georg Rasch. They also set out the nine dimensions of leadership that Infosys is interested in: these include ‘strategic leadership’, ‘relationship leadership’, ‘talent leadership’, ‘change leadership’, ‘operational leadership’, ‘thought leadership’, and ‘entrepreneurial leadership’. There are chapters on all of these dimensions that have been authored by an Infoscian who best exemplifies that aspect of leadership, or which draws upon the observations and interviews of a particular set of Infoscians, along with a brief summary of the academic literature available in that area.

Strategic Differentiators

Given the difficulty in understanding the subtleties of both leadership theory and practice, the goal here is not to achieve closure in all these areas, but to summarize the best set of insights available at this point in time, along with suggestions on how research that is underway in academia or at the Infosys leadership Institute might address these problems in the near future. The notion of strategic leadership is set out by Rajeswar Murali and Matt Barney. It starts out by explicating the leading theories of strategic management, the main differentiators that Infosys has deployed so far, its strategy of globalization, de-risking relationship with important clients, revenue considerations in different geographies, the role of emerging economies, its understanding of how to define verticals, the role of specialization, and the challenges of managing

strategic change. This is an interesting approach to strategy because it not only explains what Infosys understands by strategy in the academic sense of the term, but also what it means by strategy in terms of what it is trying to do, and the differences, if any, in strategy, in terms of geographies. Pradeep Chakravarthy addresses the challenges of strategic change and change management by systematically working his way through the different models of change, the main variables in contention, the theoretical interdependencies between these variables, the role of the external environment, and the main assumptions in each of these models of change management. He also differentiates between change at the ‘individual’ and ‘organizational’ levels and the main change factors that a company must incorporate into its change management framework; he also differentiates between changes as experienced by individuals as opposed to organizational units of various sizes. Helping the company to navigate the process of change successfully is amongst the forms of leadership that are taken quite seriously at Infosys given the levels of socio-economic uncertainty that companies have had to manage in recent years. Satyendra Kumar and Matt Barney then set out to explain leadership in operational contexts. This form of leadership is related to the value system that guides Infoscians when they deal with customers; the operational challenge then is to understand the implications for how a particular value system must be translated into forms of operational excellence whether it takes the simple form of goal setting or involves the more strategic dimension of business process management given the strategic need to align, integrate, and scale operations effectively. Risk identification and management is also an important dimension of operational leadership: Infosys has therefore set up a formal position in this area by appointing a Chief Risk Officer. There is also some interesting research on operational leadership going on at the Infosys Leadership Institute to help institutionalize a culture of continuous improvement. The main operational framework in contention here is the ‘Cue See’ model, which ‘posits that all processes in a firm should be specified with four variables’. These variables are ‘quality, cost, quantity, and cycle time’.

Kumar and Barney also go on to identify the key behavioral attributes that operational leaders at Infosys must have after identifying and interviewing those who are doing well in this form of leadership; these behavioral attributes include ‘attention to detail’, ‘empowerment’, ‘leading by example’, and ‘humility’.

Talent Management

This essay is followed by Ashok Kacker’s discussion on talent leadership, which is defined as the ability to harness the talent of individuals in order to derive a competitive advantage for the company. Kacker sets out the six steps involved in managing and leading talent effectively; it comprises the following: ‘selection’, ‘induction’, ‘goal-setting’, ‘feedback’, ‘developing people’, and ‘employee engagement’. He also discusses what can go right or wrong during each of these steps and is, above all, interested in working out an effective model of employee engagement by asking why there isn’t sufficient employee engagement in most companies. Identifying the source of this resistance is absolutely important in managing talent and measuring performance effectively. Talent leaders from Infosys are also profiled in an attempt to set out their important traits and the stylistic aspects of this form of leadership. Aarti Shyamsundar and Jeff Kavanagh emphasize the need to connect with people, especially stakeholders, by learning to network and build relationships. Relationship leadership is not only about understanding how to leverage networks to build a good business, but also about learning how to influence people by deploying ‘the six principles of ethical influence’: these include ‘reciprocity, liking, authority, consensus, consistency, and scarcity’. These principles, which are discussed in detail, can help a company to build good relations with clients and expand the amount of business that it is able to do. While influence is necessary, it is not sufficient since clients are looking for innovative solutions which requires content or thought leadership as well. It is therefore important to identify the relevant factors in identifying thought leadership and the conditions in which it can be deployed effectively. Thought leadership can

manifest itself in different forms: they include ‘meta-cognition’, ‘unconventional thinking’, ‘focus’, ‘foresight’, ‘flow’, ‘insight’, etc. What this form of leadership emerges from is not only domain specific expertise, but also the ability to switch between cognitive frameworks, and then situate thought processes of leaders, clients, and employees in terms of cognitive differences.

Entrepreneurial Leadership

And, finally, Gaurav Rastogi explains what constitutes ‘entrepreneurial

leadership’, which a company needs to stay on top through a relentless

process of learning and innovation. The different aspects of the Infosys

business model that gave it an entrepreneurial edge include the global

delivery model, the foray into business process outsourcing, the strategic

and operational emphasis on predictability, sustainability, profitability,

and de-risking, etc. Rastogi sets out the behavioral factors that constitute

the entrepreneurial personality, differentiates between intrapreneurship

and entrepreneurship, and the transformational impact of entrepreneurs

along with the expectations that they must address. These types of

leaders are expected to be influential, inspiring, intellectually stimulating,

and considerate to employees and clients. Rastogi, like all the contributors

to this volume, not only identifies specific instances of Infoscians who

have these attributes, but studies them closely in order to build a profile

of this type of leadership. And, as Mahendra Pai points out in the epilogue,

the question that companies grapple with everyday is whether leaders are

born or made, and, if the latter should be the case, what is it that

companies can do to increase the number of leaders available so that

they can get ‘ordinary people to achieve extraordinary goals’. This is the

problem that the Infosys Leadership Institute is attempting to solve. As Pai

puts it, ‘an organization dominated by a single charismatic leader cannot

sustain itself. In the end, it’s a team of excellent, passionate, visionary

leaders with a wide range of viewpoints that produces better decisions,

and sustains the leadership legacy’. This book by Matt Barney and a select

group of Infoscians is a step in precisely that direction. It will, needless to

say, be a necessary accompaniment to instructors who might want to

teach cases on Infosys irrespective of whether they do so in the context of

IT, strategy, change management, or leadership. Barney & Co have set an

interesting precedent in the Indian business context through this book.

Conclusion

This is the right way for a knowledge-intensive company, in a high-growth sector, and in an emerging economy, to not only showcase its reserve of intellectual capital, but make an effective case for developing leaders. This is done by not only training employees to be leaders, but, above all, by being willing to learn reciprocally from them in the process. Learnability, then, as Infoscians understand it, is not just an organizational process, but the animating ethic required to get ‘ordinary people to achieve extraordinary goals’.

SHIVA KUMAR SRINIVASAN, IIM KOZHIKODE