Managing Radical Change

Managing Radical Change: What Indian Companies Must Do to Become World-Class looks at what companies in India must do, not just to survive, but to rank among the best in their strategy, organization and management. According to internationally acclaimed management gurus Sumantra Ghoshal and Christopher A. Bartlett and industry insider Gita Piramal, the problem is not that managers are unaware of the need for a radical response to the problems and challenges posed by the new competitive, technological and market demands in India. But, trapped in an incrementalist mindset—that change can come only by degrees—deep in their heart they do not feel the urgency that they profess. Without the energy of their own convictions, what chance do these managers have of leading change in their organizations? That is the fundamental premise behind this book, as well as its key purpose: to make managers believe—really believe—that radical performance improvement is possible. Ghoshal, Piramal and Bartlett feel that managers are the best teachers of managers, and so Managing Radical Change is a distillation of lessons offered by people as diverse as N.R. Narayana Murthy and Brijmohan Lall Munjal, Keki Dadiseth and Dhirubhai Ambani, Azim Premji and Rohinton Aga, Lakshmi Niwas Mittal and Subhash Chandra, Rahul Bajaj and Parvinder Singh. There is a wealth of information on the best companies in India and worldwide, among them Infosys, Wipro, Reliance, Hindustan Lever, GE and ABB. Lucidly written and brilliantly argued, Managing Radical Change is an invaluable roadmap for Indian executives on their journey towards excellence, and perhaps the most significant contribution to Indian management literature in recent times. A pervasive disease afflicts corporate India. It is called satisfactory underperformance: a state in which a company continues to make money but gradually loses its competitive edge as a complacent management fails to ask itself what it is doing to value add. The crisis comes, as it must, and the company suddenly finds itself in a situation where it is fighting for its survival.