My Work with India
Narayana Murthy’s comment about expecting 70 hours/week from Indian youth has made waves. While this idea has merit and was agreed to by the likes of Vinod Khosla, I believe that the quality of deliverables by individuals must improve, too. It is in this context, and given my professional background detailed below, that I write this blog. I hope to create synergies with like-minded visionaries – to improve quality outputs and further the mission of Indiaspora.
I have over 45 years of business background, including being an executive, a consultant with Fortune 500 companies, dean and department head of business schools, a holder of endowed chairs, author of several business books and simulations, founding editor of a cross-functional management journal, and winner of awards for research and teaching. I have been conferred the Lifetime Achievement Award in Marketing Research and The Outstanding Academic Title Award for the Handbook of Marketing Research.
In addition, I am currently the Founder and President of PrecisED, Inc., a Delaware Public Benefit Corporation with the mission to educate the masses irrespective of their ability to pay. PrecisED, Inc. is a learning platform. It includes a business simulation, Virtual Business Professional, VB Pro, which is accompanied by the book ALL THE BUSINESS YOUR CEO WOULD LOVE YOU TO KNOW. VB Pro is experiential, custom-built, online, and cloud-based, wherein participants individually learn by running a virtual business – from the idea stage to a globally diversified B2B and B2C company. Besides imparting real-time Cross-functional Knowledge for Decision-making, VB Pro enhances Judgment. (Judgment is perhaps one of the most essential characteristics of leadership.)
Using VB Pro, I have engaged with Indian organizations and professionals intensively to coach them in cross-functional management and leadership, all in the spirit of giving back and in accordance with the mission of my Public Benefit Corporation.
All the above professional life experiences allow me to make the statement that the quality of outputs from individual Indian workers needs to improve.
I have been professing that for over a decade, as can be seen in this video from 13 years ago for PBS facilitated by Alliance for US and India Business, “Dr. Rajiv Grover on the entrepreneurial spirit of Indians,” at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MauZJGdV5xU.
Though national cultural change movement to quality consciousness is much required, it can be started with individual firms wanting cultural change at the organizational level.
Quality Outputs from Individual Workers can be enhanced by changing elements of culture, such as Rewards, Empowerment, Purpose, Innovativeness, and Urgency. Quality Outputs lead to higher Talent Retention, Job and Career Satisfaction, Brand Equity, Revenues, and Profit Margins, among other benefits.
Inherent in the quality improvement journey is the notion of Trust. I am told that in India, more relationships need to be built on trust rather than transactions based on mistrust.
About the Author
Rajiv Grover, B. Tech., IIT Kharagpur, MBA IIM C, Ph.D. University of Massachusetts. Professor, Dean 2007-2018, Fogelman College of Business and Economics, University of Memphis; Senior Research Fellow Drucker School of Management, Claremont Graduate University; Honorary Distinguished Professor, School of Management & Entrepreneurship, Shiv Nadar University, India. Previously, taught at Penn State, University of Pittsburgh, Johns Hopkins, UGA, Duke, and Stanford. Rajiv can be reached at rgrover@precisedonline.com.
