 "R Gopalakrishnan")
R Gopalakrishnan
R Gopalakrishnan
R Gopalakrishnan has been at top of corporate world in India for over three decades. He is former Director of Tata Sons and Vice Chairman of Hindustan Unilever. He has over 30 years of board experience and currently serves as an independent director of listed companies, Castrol India and one of Sri Lankan conglomerates, Hemas. He also worked as independent director of Press Trust of India. He has been appointed as Distinguished Professor of IIT, Kharagpur and Executive-in-Residence at SPJIMR, Mumbai. He studied physics at Kolkata University, engineering at IIT Kharagpur and attended Advanced Management Program at Harvard Business School.
R Gopalakrishnan has been at top of corporate world in India for over three decades. He is former Director of Tata Sons and Vice Chairman of Hindustan Unilever. He has over 30 years of board experience and currently serves as an independent director of listed companies, Castrol India and one of Sri Lankan conglomerates, Hemas. He also worked as independent director of Press Trust of India. He has been appointed as Distinguished Professor of IIT, Kharagpur and Executive-in-Residence at SPJIMR, Mumbai. He studied physics at Kolkata University, engineering at IIT Kharagpur and attended Advanced Management Program at Harvard Business School.
Page 4 - R Gopalakrishnan
In search of CEO excellence
The theme of this book follows in the genre of several books like the Lessons of Excellence by Tom Peters and Bob Waterman - both also, coincidentally, McKinsey consultants
 "In search of CEO excellence")
Narcissus in the boardroom
Media encomiums and the feeling of self-importance are shimmering mirages in the desert of self-delusion
When the spiritual and the material combine
Godmen, like Russian oligarchs, have a cathartic effect on sound lending principles and sustainable enterprise building
Dimensions of leadership
The subject of leadership permits opposite conclusions to be drawn from the same observations and data
 "Dimensions of leadership")
What it takes to love a corporation
There will be a debate among strategists and entrepreneurs about whether Tata Sons has been wise to acquire Air India
 "What it takes to love a corporation")
Companies need more neeti, less niyam
The key lies in training and aligning directors about the behavioural aspects of governance, not only about the laws
 "Companies need more neeti, less niyam")
Good governance despite differences
Governance is perceived as an abstruse and technical subject, connecting the three dots of accounting, legal, and regulatory
 "Good governance despite differences")
Leaders should be changed periodically
When leaders linger long, warning signals of reduced effectiveness begin, often increasing in intensity
 "Leaders should be changed periodically")
Leading in a crisis
Denial of a mistake is a terribly diminishing action. The fact that many leaders rarely admit to their mistakes is no excuse for not doing so
How social context influences human behaviour
Many crises are leadership failures rather than technical ones. Leaders focus so intently on an agenda that they fail to factor in their team's social context
 "How social context influences human behaviour")
Why managers must be coaches too
Ruchira Chaudhary places the burden of coaching, not on her ilk, but on operating managers. That is a laudable aim.
 "Why managers must be coaches too")
Legality versus morality
Law and morality are often not aligned. Apart from regulations, we must consider the difficult perspective of character versus morality by exploring "behavioural corporate governance"
Why our brain resists diversity
Although the brain resists variation, in contrast, variation is at the core of evolution and life forms
When CEO and board marriages fail
Boards and remuneration committees hesitate to engage with the behavioural and soft aspects of CEO appraisal. This is one important reason for such marriages failing
The gyroscope of corporate governance
Lessons from political governance are instructive even for corporations
The emerging future role of boards
Management needs new ways of thinking to make companies survive and grow for the long term, and to be sustainable companies in every sense of the word
 "The emerging future role of boards")
Prodrome of a governance crisis - behaviour
Regulators and board directors should be sensitive to advance signals, usually manifested through behavioural aberrations before the failure
Myrmidons around the CEO
When you think of celebrities - CEOs, ministers, bureaucrats, actors and sportsmen - you note that they have a swarm of myrmidons around them
Cheer in Covid times
Here's the backstory of Biocon's Alzumab which has been approved by the CDSCO for the treatment of Covid-19 in India
Be strategic rather than opportunistic
The "long game" should be the new face of business strategy