Friday, 28 March 2014

“Indians Appetite to Excel as International Management Thinkers and Thinkers 50” - By Professor M.S.Rao, Ph.D.



"Leadership is not magnetic personality, that can just as well be a glib tongue. It is not "making friends and influencing people", that is flattery. Leadership is lifting a person's vision to higher sights, the raising of a person's performance to a higher standard, the building of a personality beyond its normal limitations." — Peter F. Drucker


In one of the recent leadership interview podcasts conducted by Richard Rierson, the Founder & Host of the prestigious ‘Dose of Leadership Podcast’ asked me a question – why the hunger for leadership and guru status is more among Indians. It is true that Indians crave for international attention and recognition and they want to stand out from other management and leadership gurus globally. There are more Indians awardees in the Thinkers50 globally and there is a significant number of Indians working in prestigious business schools globally. For instance, Nitin Nohria is the dean of Harvard Business School and Deepak Jain is the Dean of INSEAD to name a few. It indicates the leadership abilities of Indians in the area of management. However, when we observe closely most Indians excelled in alien land rather than in Indian land. It is strange that not even a single Indian university is in the list of top 100 universities in the world. Hence, it is time to ponder and look at why Indians don’t excel in India but excel greatly overseas and Indian universities don’t stand out globally. Is the growth of Indians abroad due to the international ambience, qualitative contribution, opportunities or networking? Is non-recognition in Indian land due to the lack of opportunities or ambience or politicization in India?  The answer may be a combination of all these factors.

We rarely had the opportunity to prove ourselves in the past except in a few areas especially in science and technology. Thanks to rapid growth in technology as the things are thrown open and people have easy access to international information and updates. They are easily connected with others unlike the past. They collaborate with others to avail the opportunities internationally.  


Thinkers50 – 2013 Awards

I am excited to know the results of Thinkers50 2013 where Clayton Christensen has been ranked as the number one management thinker followed by W. Chan Kim & Renée Mauborgne holding their ranks of 2011.  There are some new thinkers who made their entry into the list including Sheryl Sandberg. The Thinkers50 Awards are like the Oscars of Management and are synonymous with Nobel prizes as there is no Nobel Prize for the area of Management. These awards are the most prestigious as every management thinker considers them a great honor to bag these awards.


Selection Criteria

Thinkers50 has 10 established criteria by which thinkers are evaluated. 1 - 5 of the criteria are based on how the thinker has performed over the last two years (since the last ranking). 1. Relevance of ideas; 2. Rigour of research; 3. Presentation of ideas; 4. Accessibility/Dissemination of ideas; 5. International outlook. Criteria 6 - 10 are evaluated based on the thinker's performance over the long term (the last 20 years): 6. Originality of ideas; 7. Impact of ideas; 8. Practicality of ideas; 9. Business sense; 10. Power to inspire.


Indians Appetite for Management

The 7 Indians awarded in Thinkers50 - 2013 are Vijay Govindarajan, Pankaj Ghemawat, Nirmalya Kumar, Nitin Nohria, Subir Chowdhury, Anil Gupta and Rakesh Khurana. It is obvious that there is a growing appetite among Indian management thinkers to excel as global management gurus through their research and contributions.   When you look at Vijay Govindarajan who is popularly called VG globally, he is specialized in innovation.  His three box approach written along with Chris Trimble is very popular and published in Harvard Business Review as “The CEO’s Role in Business Model Reinvention” urging forward-looking CEOs to manage reinvention with a “three-box approach”.

Most of the top business schools in the world have faculty members from Indian origin. It shows the strength of Indians and their acceptance globally in the area of management. There is a huge demand for Indian management faculty members globally who are blend of industry, research, teaching, training and consultancy background. The day is not far away where we will find Indians leading in top positions globally in all spheres thus bringing glory to India and Indians. It is time for Indian management thinkers living in India who aspire to stand out internationally to work harder by contributing quality of research and network with other global thinkers to be listed in Thinkers50 2015.  I wish them good luck!

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Life is great!

Professor M.S.Rao, India
Founder of MSR Leadership Consultants India
Listed in Marquis Who's Who in the World in 2013
21 Success Sutras for Leaders: Top 10 Leadership Books of the Year (San Diego University) Amazon URL: http://www.amazon.com/21-Success-Sutras-Leaders-ebook/dp/B00AK98ELI

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