How CEOs are discovering that
mentoring is much more than an occasional conversation over coffee
Through out his seven year career in Bollywood, Siddharth Roy Kapoor, CEO of Disney UTV Studios, has struggled with many conflicts. One constant irritant has been balancing the creative and commercial aspect of film making. Each exciting movie script is a new challenge and brings with it the inevitable -- a new clash with the CFO or the director. And its one area that continues to stump him. For Kapoor, its also one area that he feels he has learnt the most from his boss, Ronnie Screwvala. For the Disney head honcho, it’s all in a day’s work. “I don’t know how he comes up with such out of the box solutions whether it is commercial or creative. It’s one thing I learn from him by osmosis,” says Kapoor. As for Screwvala, managing director, The Walt Disney Co, everytime he leaves Kapoor with an answer, it’s not just another business decision taken but also a little sprinkling of his “No Fixed Time Fixed Place Mentoring” glitter.
Screwvala feels that it’s not something you can consciously allocate a fixed amount of time to. “For a leader, mentoring happens almost all the time. It’s not a fixed time fixed place process and it’s certainly not meant to be a top down process,” he says.
While that’s CEO-to-CEO coaching, there’s another CEO who reaches out to the group at the other extreme, a few kilometres north of the UTV office. How much interaction can an intern expect to have with the CEO of a large FMCG major? Maybe just a few minutes during the welcome address. Saugata Gupta, CEO-consumer, Marico, thinks otherwise. “I like spending time with management trainees and summer interns in an informal unstructured manner. They are the future and have some of the best ideas,” he says. Gupta has regular skip-level meetings and one-on-ones with his employees when travelling. The theory is simple. Guide them, advise them and in the process, get to know them better. It’s no longer enough to send your best people to leadership development programmes or hire external coaches to train them – CEOs are now doing it themselves. “Talent management is probably the most important aspect of a CEO’s job today,” says Gupta, and by extension, so is mentoring.
On certain organisational issues, it doesn’t matter if you bring in the best brains to advise you — it’s the internal perspective that will make all the difference. At Hindustan Unilever, Hemant Bakshi, executive directorhome & personal care, often has mentees come to discuss issues centred around career progression and managing their teams. Bakshi helps them work out their priorities, often tapping into his personal experiences. “A lot of women – and some men --have issues about worklife balance. This is something I’ve dealt with, since my wife also works,” he says.
In Bangalore, one chief executive is taking the art of mentoring talent to a whole new level; till a few years his designation even read, ‘Gardener’. MindTree Chairman Subroto Bagchi formally ‘tends’ to 100 of the company’s senior ‘plants’. “We felt that the next generation of leaders must expand their capacity in a personal and professional sense. That is how I assumed full-time responsibility for it to be able to give focused attention,” he says. Constant Gardner
While mentoring is rapidly moving to the top of the CEOs agenda, it is still something that is done more out of a personal interest to groom the next generation of leaders. Even if an organisation has a formal structured approach to it, it’s unlikely that is it something that the leaders are assessed on or are answerable to the board about. One reason
for this is that mentoring is seen as a long term process, something that may not bear noticeable fruits in the short term. Bagchi says, “You do not do it to meet narrow organisational goals. There is the issue of selflessness. Mentoring is somewhat like affection. If you have been a recipient, you are very likely to be a giver.”
HUL’s Bakshi staunchly believes that he’s reached where he has because of mentors like Vindi Banga and Harish Manwani, and in turn is trying to pass that on to the next generation of leaders at the consumer goods major. “I’ve gained a lot from them,” he says. “I’ve learnt how to set a vision for the business, get into the nitty-gritty, while never compromising on the principles.” And this perhaps is the crucial area where a CEO mentor can make a difference. Softer aspects like values and principles are best taught by experiential learning and perhaps storytelling, and not through formal leadership development programmes. “I just listen to what the mentees have to say. There is no offering a solution, its just sharing experiences and insights, offering unbiased, intelligent feedback. Just guiding him to unlock his potential,” says Rajiv Memani, CEO and Country Managing Partner of Ernst & Young.
Of course, meetings are also a booster dose of years of distilled business experience. A Mahendran, managing director, Godrej Sara Lee who holds structured sessions quarterly with his mentees, and informal ones over dinner as well makes it a point to share years' of accumulated knowledge. “I guide them on decision making. They tell me what situation they are in and I’ll advise them on how to approach with a 60% entrepreneurial mindset and 40% professional attitude,” he says.
And which areas do CEOs find the most problems arising? Of course, it’s the interpersonal skills that trip many mentees. Charting a career in corporates these days is like navigating a jeep through a minefield filled with bombs (read inflated egos, insecure bosses, over ambitious juniors) ready to blow any struggling career to smithereens. “The most common problem they have is managing the relationship with their bosses and colleagues. Some also have trouble with career transition and their role changes or they are rotated between departments.” says Dr DB Raju, who retired as head of L&T Realty earlier this month, and who is a certified coach from the International Coaching Federation.
And mentoring can be taxing affair, taking its toll on CEOs time and emotions as well. Companies now are even training its corner room occupants for their mentoring role. Duetsche Bank, for example, put all its would-be mentors, including former CEO Gunit Chaddha, through a training program in before assigning him a mentee.
The Pune based, Naushad Forbes, executive director of Forbes Marshall is often called ‘the trainer’. He recalls how 25 years ago, the head of his IT business quit saying he didn’t get enough guidance from his seniors who were more skilled in the field. “This prompted us to think about how our young people required not only encouragement but also inputs to enable them to learn,” he says. Forbes Marshall has set up a change team which meets weekly to discuss what can be improved in the company and its people, and then works towards doing just that. “We keep track of young talent and how they are doing -- whether they are happy or challenged or bored. We are now in the process of making this more systematic,” he says Forbes. He himself follows an open door policy and holds regular interactions with employees to discuss a range of issues.
In the old days, mentoring in family run companies tool the form of senior professionals taking young family members under their wing, showing them the ropes so they could eventually take charge of the business. That system still exists, but in the knowledge economy, the resurgence of mentoring is more to do with talent management. IT major Cognizant has instituted an academy to formalise the mentoring process, but the CXOs still remain closely involved. Lakshmi Narayanan, vice-chairman, Cognizant, says, “The Cognizant Academy identifies senior leaders with the experience, maturity and skills required to be a mentor. We have a system where mentees are mapped on to mentors on a 3:1 basis, in a ‘mentoring circle’ which meets every week to share experiences, discuss challenges.” Bringing in structure doesn’t mean that the interaction is restricted to the office. A Cognizant manager in Chennai particularly enjoys holding his sessions at the Besant Nagar beach.
Perhaps the biggest reason why so many CEOs are turning to mentoring is not because it’s being imposed by an over-active HR department, but because they’ve seen the benefits up close. Formal programmes at ivy-league b-schools are all very well, but mentoring adds a whole new dimension. As the former head of Ogilvy & Mather’s direct marketing business, R Sridhar attended courses on facilitating innovation in organisations. Now he’s an independent innovation coach and says, “You might send a person to Harvard, but it’s still restricted to training. During mentoring the CEO shares experiences and gives advice on how to navigate the organisational culture and relationships to get things done.”
At end of his stint as managing director of Morarjee Textiles, Pramod Gothi underwent a coaching experience which changed his life. He started mentoring the younger employees during his last two years there, and post retirement, went on to become a certified CEO coach. Gothi feels that there are certain things that must be kept in mind while undertaking such an exercise. “First is confidentiality and trust. The mentee should be clear that he can trust the CEO to keep whatever he discusses confidential, and also that it won’t impact his career in any manner,” he says.
CEOs have to be careful about the mentoring process for the moment word goes out that he is mentoring an executive or a group, the mentees are seen in different light through out the company. Memani feels that’s a dangerous situation that should be avoided. “I don’t want people to know who I am mentoring,” he says. Since CEOs usually mentor high potential candidates, it often sends a signal that the candidate could possibly be groomed for the corner room.
Almost all CEOs agree that mentoring is also a learning opportunity for them. “Learning is continuous. Young people normally have less preconceived notions. In “todays” organization the average age of the company should be 30-35 years of age, no more,” says Screwvala.
Mentoring is about preparing the second level of leadership, in which case there is some degree of answerability to the board. There’s no denying that it helps identify people for positions of higher responsibility. Over time, a leader is likely to be judged not by how much he grew the topline, but how many leaders he created and that is why, mentoring will always remain a key part of his agenda. And does mentoring from the top guys who have seen the pressures of CEO’s cabin help? Raju puts it well: “I’ve often tell myself, if I knew at the age of 40 what I learnt at the age of 50, I could have become chairman of L&T.”
Priyanka
Sangani CDET121012
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