Leadership for sustainable success - The Wipro Way

Jan 12th 2010

By Ester Martinez

Aligning leadership behaviour with core vision and values

Leadership at Wipro means the ability to win the hearts and minds of all our stakeholders whether
internal or external. It means leading others with humility and yet having big dreams. It means the self
confidence to accept that you are wrong and resilience to fight back, says Azim Premji, Chairman of
Wipro.

Azim Premji inherited his fathers cooking oil business in 1966. When he repositioned it into an IT
services organization, he did not aim to just build a business; he set out to build an organization for
sustainable success. For companies to build an institution they need to rely on its people and they need
to focus on nurturing and developing talent. There are no shortcuts, says Pratik Kumar, Executive Vice
President Human Resources, Wipro Limited The company built the foundation of talent and
leadership identification back in the seventies and today these practices are a norm across industries.

For Wipro, the foundation is built using the groups vision and goals and a reflection on what individual
and collective behaviour will help the organization achieve these goals. These are revised regularly to
keep the group tuned to the changes in its business model and its customer base. Critical roles are then
identified within the organization to achieve those business objectives.

Says Pratik, The process has evolved over the years. Initially we learnt as we went along. Today the
process has become sustainable and not people or team dependant. It is a way of life for the group.
Today, the leadership and succession planning consists of a systematic 4-step process that is designed to
align the organizational leadership and its skills with core corporate strategy and goals.

At the outset, there is an articulation of the companys central beliefs, values & strategic vision, followed
by a clear definition of what collective behaviour will help achieve the vision in a manner compatible to
the core values. As Pratik puts it, These demonstrated behaviours will ensure our success and also
determine areas where we need to build internally using outside support to achieve our goals. This also
evolves as our business context changes and our customer expectations evolve. So those behaviours are
tuned regularly to ensure that we are aligned to our business and customers.

The next crucial step is to identify critical roles within the organization and create a process to ensure
solid succession planning for those roles. This helps HR in identifying the talent pool needed for critical
roles and the type of training interventions required at each level.

The third step in the process is to decide on the build vs acquire dilemma. Given Wipros scale, the
decision is normally tilted towards building capability internally, but the company regularly brings in
talent from the outside which creates an opportunity to getting on board unique skills not available
internally and also creates an opportunity to learn from other companies. Says Pratik, The blend is
important and allows us to be more porous and open to new ideas and fresh thinking.

Finally, Wipro has a very robust process called the Talent Review and Planning exercise that is
conducted annually. In this process all employees with managerial roles, approximately 12,000 globally,
undergo a 360 degree assessment of their capabilities based on individual and collective behaviour that
the organization has identified as key qualities for a leader. This is reviewed by senior management
which helps in determining key people and leadership potential. Typically, senior management reviews
around 400 managers as part of this exercise to identify candidates for key organizational and leadership
roles.

Interestingly, this complete process helps us in assessing our leadership bench as well as assessing key
organizational capabilities. We do a lot of analysis with the data we receive from different sources. Also,
when we realize that Wipro as an organization, scores low in terms of certain behaviour, we pass on the
assessment to the Leadership Development Team to focus on it and intervene in strengthening it., says
Pratik while outlining advantages of the process followed at Wipro.

In terms of career development, there is a clear linkage with opportunities for progression and growth
for those in the talent pool. Employees from the talent pool are entrusted with bigger roles and critical
assignments. The company is also willing to demonstrate its trust in the ability of these people by giving
them key breaks. Says Pratik, There is an underlying organizational philosophy, if the individual is 60%
ready for the role and the pointers are showing favourably, we will give the individual the break.
Typically 9 out of 10 would succeed, so we seem to doing something right in assessing these individuals.
You do not however lower the expectation but this sheer trust is a big source of motivation.

For senior roles the company has created a program to facilitate the process of being aware of senior
role openings across the group and also show interest in them in a much more confidential and sensitive
manner. While underlining the complexity involved at more senior levels, Pratik explains, We realized
that at senior levels a normal job opening process would not work, because people who have been in
the system for long and are in senior roles will wonder why should I apply for an internal job as
somebody should be already knowing my capabilities and experience. But still we wanted to capture
their interest in a particular opening. We created a simplified and fast track process for these senior
roles where they can show interest in senior openings and the process has a different and more
premium feel to it.

In terms of leadership development and training, people identified in the leadership talent pool have
access to leadership development programs both in-house and global programs. Global programs are
consortium programs with other organizations that create an opportunity to learn and expand ones
thinking as well as establish networks. In terms of compensation, differentiation is based on
performance and role, which is across the board and not only for people identified as part of the
leadership pool.

Finally people identified in the talent pool also have the opportunity to participate in strategic review
meetings. Says Pratik, These initiatives even though symbolic at one level have a very important
message attached to it.


2 Comments

By Nirmit
Very nice article. Nirmit Parekh (nirmit@3pconsultants.co.in)

By P.C.Verma
It is a brief but succinctly put picture of the people plan and strategy of a great organization that Wipro
has come to be.