No shortcuts in a dynamic world

In the first part of a series, the writer talks about the prerequisites to starting up

In this part, I explore two questions: What is a “business institution”? And what is the mindset, behaviour and action of the “shaper” of a business institution?
 
Start-ups can develop the business-institutional mindset early on. This subject has been debated and researched by talented academics at Bhavan’s SPJIMR (SP Jain Institute of Management and Research). As an experienced practitioner, I have been enriched by co-authoring with the professors. We navigated a rewarding path in applied management research, set in the unique cultural and economic environment of India. Each book is positioned at the intersection of practice and theory, but experience before theory.

 
Each book carries an appendix on the research methodology and what we term as the “Shapers’ MBA grid” — mindset, behaviour and action grid. We define “institution” as an organisation that has, at its core, at least three characteristics: First, it has high values and norms for which it is greatly admired; second, it has withstood pressures of finance, business and regulation, thus developed innate resilience; third, its economic and stakeholder returns are at the upper end, though not necessarily the very top compared to peers. To define the Shapers’ MBA grid, we iteratively honed an 8x3 matrix. The three vertical columns are mindset, behaviour and actions. The eight horizontal rows represent dimensions based on purpose, people, policies and processes. Of the eight dimensions, the three essential ones are people relations, short-term and long-term focus and critical thinking. The five optional ones are orbit shifting, breaking barriers, levers of change, cyclical learning and stakeholder orientation.

 

After two years of collective effort by each team, three books have recently been published: How TCS built an industry for India, co-authored with Dr Tulsi Jayakumar, How Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw fermented Biocon, co-authored with Dr Sushmita Srivastava, and How Anil Naik built L&T’s remarkable growth trajectory, co-authored with Dr Pallavi Mody.
 
Every startup today is caught up in the maelstrom of uncertainties, so it may be consoling for them to learn about the beginnings of today’s grown-ups, not so long ago. Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) began in 1968 in a nation, which suffered from scarcity of food, electricity and infrastructure. The TCS book describes its rise as a “black swan” event, characterised by rarity, extreme impact and retrospective predictability.

 
Of the eight mindsets, behaviours and actions listed above, the first three were adopted by every shaper; we deem these three as essential. Like an archer chooses an arrow from a range of quivers, each shaper whom we studied chose some of the five other MBAs. More on the “3 plus 5” MBAs in the next article in this series.
 
The writer is a distinguished professor of IIT Kharagpur. He was a director of Tata Sons and a vice-chairman of Hindustan Unilever
 
(Three co-authored books in a series called ‘Shapers of Business Institutions’ — on TCS, Biocon and L&T — have just been published by Rupa)