The Hindu Business Line : ‘Talent needs to be humble, hungry and smart’

Numbers and people: today that’s what defines a company. When a big player enters a market, it usually helps smaller entities to grow. Who is great — the tree or the plants that start growing around it? The first big contract or the company which got ‘the’ contract? Entrepreneurs usually fall in the second kind, mostly. They have a vision but perhaps not the means. “A coach is required who will help in realising the full potential and creating a fine entrepreneur. The basic DNA has to be present already,” says Mr Arun Jain, Chairman and CEO, Polaris Software. In a sense, employees are entrepreneurs working for the same company, isn’t it?

Mr Jain, who came down to Business Line for an hour-long interaction, spoke at length about us — humans. Not something IT czars speak often on, outside their offices. Even more unlikely for the founder of a company that today is a global integrated technology solution provider for the banking, financial services and insurance sector.

He starts off by saying that the unexplored human potential is immense and as human beings we are in constant discovery mode on how to exploit even 10 per cent of it. Read on…

Excerpts from the interview:

As someone who has seen the IT industry for long, what are your views about today’s manpower and talent?

I must congratulate the systems and processes that IT companies have established. The Indian IT industry has quickly packaged the talent development processes on its own. When the industry realised the gap in usable talent from universities, it created its own infrastructure for training. The systems have not only delivered but have led to repeatable performance. This is unmatched anywhere in the world.

Talent needs to be humble, hungry and smart. These elements are present in Indian talent, which gives us an edge over others.

Yes there are some gaps at the middle-manager level because of the fast growth of the industry but now the returning talent (from abroad) is filling that gap.

A dream you declare is to create 25 entrepreneurs. Is it not that entrepreneurs invent themselves and arrive on the scene, rather than get groomed and readied?

You are right when you say that entrepreneurs invent themselves. The basic DNA has to be present already. However, a coach is required who will help in realising the full potential and creating a fine entrepreneur.

As a veteran leader in the industry you have already put in the systems and processes for things to go on. What is it, then, that makes you still get up and run every morning?

The current corporate systems are fundamentally derived from Western processes and systems. I believe there is immense potential towards building a ‘Human Corporation’ which is beyond corporate policies and business rules. We are yet to see teams working together under more natural laws of social interaction to realise individual potential to its full potential.

We have a long way to go in building a global corporate which has the ability to continuously reinvent. During the last few years we slowed down on revenue growth as we were engaged in building strong products, processes and systems infrastructure that can support the next phase of growth.

‘Live your dream’ reads your motto. Isn’t dream something so removed from the present that it presents a contradiction to ‘live’ it here and now?

Dreams are a source of innovation and change. Technology provides the tools for bringing change and innovations in the hands of the customers. Since Polaris connects customer aspirations to provide unmatched services to their customers, we believe its appropriateness in the context you referred.

“Live your dream” is relevant for the associates at Polaris. They join Polaris either from college or other companies. We provide them the platform where they connect technology usage to business and thus enable their ‘spark’ to see the day of light and empower them to perform beyond their own imagined capacity.

Do your ideas find ready and meek acceptance among your people, or is resistance to change not uncommon?

You are spot-on. Human beings fundamentally don’t like change unless it is forced. But the right culture, coach and trigger can influence the acceptance easily.

How do you, as an organisation, help the identification of high performance triggers in employees?

Learning is triggered by stimulus that we get from our environment. The role of a leader is to provide more opportunities for such stimulus which can trigger learning and unstoppable professional growth.

I have been working in this area for over two years now and I call it ‘Unmukt’ — the high performance learning architecture. To grow, one must constantly learn. Technically speaking, less than 0.1 per cent of learning is retained due to various layers of brain where filtration happens.

You are active in many CSR activities. Is there any underlying and unifying philosophy for these activities?

At the foundational years, Konarks, Polaris’ selected associates, decided in 1997 that we would contribute up to 1 per cent of profit to social activity but we must participate in the activities ourselves.

We formed Ullas Trust with a mission to build a spirit of ‘can do it’. Under this trust we choose teenagers, starting from ninth grade, from Government and Corporation schools from Chennai and all districts of Tamil Nadu. An associate (at Polaris we call employees as associates) picks up one or more students for mentoring, where he contributes 40 per cent and company, 60 per cent. Polaris hosts a public function for these students and enables their interaction with ‘role models’ of the society. This process is followed by regular weekend programmes for them at our office premises.

This trust has completed a decade and touched the lives of over 17,000 students across Tamil Nadu, Delhi and Mumbai.

Does knowledge management in corporates get the attention it deserves in what we call the knowledge economy?

Traditionally knowledge management efforts in the industry are focused towards content and codifying the same as repositories in physical or logical storage systems. Though it gets the attention it deserves, the success is still limited. As a knowledge worker, we want to ‘tell more’ than ‘learn more’.

The fact is knowledge management failed in satisfying the need being felt by ‘knowledge workers’. Hunger for knowledge is more internal, and the challenge is to take the knowledge worker from the ‘comfort zone’ of his success to the ‘vulnerable zone’ of the continuous journey of enjoyable working and learning.

Not much has been written, I guess, about the ‘angel’ role you have been playing for many ventures. Can you tell us about how you choose the project to associate with, the extent to which you assist, the success stories, and the ongoing ventures?

Few projects I am associated with are Adrenalin e-Systems (the largest selling software in human capital market), NMS Works, Innomedia Labs, Banyan Networks (now merged into Midas Communications), Maverick Systems, Lattice Bridge and Grow Talent.

I don’t have any science in looking for entrepreneur. This is not my business, but if someone around me has great passion and a good idea, I don’t hesitate in funding it. The funding is to the extent it is workable: it could be Rs 5 lakh or Rs 20 crore.

D. MURALI

KUMAR SHANKAR ROY

www.InterviewInsights.blogspot.com

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