I recently got to attend a much sought after talk, wherein the speaker was a renowned expert in his own domain. His claim to fame was the application of best practices from the automotive and other age-old industries to the relatively newer era of technology management. He was adept with the likes of Lean Management, Agile development methodologies, Xtreme programming practices, etc and he spoke passionately about these, at length.

I came out really excited, with some out-of-the-box thoughts to try out on a team that was willing to be the scapegoat for my experiments! A topic that he briefly touched on was something that, in hindsight, could easily be extended to beyond just software development. This topic of interest to me, was “Pair programming”.

I am sure those with exposure to ‘extreme programming’ paradigms know all about it, and more! But to those uninitiated in the jargons above, “pair programming” is just literally what it is – a pair involved in the programming i.e. rather than have just individuals working on their own programming problems, a pair of individuals are involved in putting their heads together to solving the same problem.

The advantages he quotes are many – having someone to bounce thoughts off, a senior mentor to guide a junior engineer, equal peers having each other watch over so that defects are reduced, learning from each other’s experience (read: mistakes), etc. The applicability of this practice or the success measure of this practice isn’t really the point of write up. My thoughts are about scaling this, and looking beyond software or technology management. It is about extending this to corporate governance.

With the recent disclosures around Satyam’s senior management (or the lack of it, considering none except one individual seemed to have any inkling of internal reality), it led me to think what if there were actually a pair involved in managing the affairs of a corporation. To lead on a possible modality, how would it be if every public listed company had a pair running the organization – one being the executive that’s managing inside-out (this is the traditional CEO role as the public face of the company) and the second one in the “pair” being the external representative.

He / She would be appointed by the majority stakeholders as their face or voice. There might be concerns as to the veracity of the second appointment, how a consensus is to be reached amongst the shareholders, etc. Of course, I don’t have the answers to all these questions, but I am sure we cannot work out a magic formula that would work for every single organization out there.

Each entity is as unique as it can get and it is in the best interests of each organization to determine the best way to select the second part of the “pair”. This is crucial because this piece of the puzzle would need to work hand-in-glove with the ‘traditional CEO’ in making sure they are making decisions with the best interests of the company , both at heart, and in soul.

The independent board of directors, unfortunately, don’t make the cut any more for they are too independent to be involved. As the story goes, they want to be the chicken and not the pig! (non-committed vs. committed; for more background on this, Google “chicken, pig and Agile”!)

The need of the hour is a committed bunch (or two) – someone who doesn’t have the same vested interests as the CEO, but at the same time has accountability to deliver, and is committed to this as a full time position.

Of course, the much talked about CEO compensation would be back in focus, for there is now a 2x outflow. But I am confident that seeing the long term health of the company in good hands, and the shareholders’ interests continuously and independently protected, is a fair enough price to pay for this model.

As a parting thought, is there a hidden message in “pair” being a part of “repair”?

The onus is on every Indian, with exposure to the West, to undo the damage that the Satyam saga has done worldwide, so that the questions surrounding corporate governance in India are put to rest once and for all!

Image Credit: Mike Baird

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Last couple of weeks we saw a drama unfold – a drama that shocked millions of shareholders of Satyam, its 53000+ employees and a nation of a billion people – surely it appeared to be the scam of the century, as far as India is concerned.

In the days that followed, the Government took some stern measures – in that it arrested the Raju brothers, appointed a Board which promises intellect, respect and most of all experience that can sail this army of 53000 employees to a feeling of security, build confidence amongst its investors and lead from turmoil to victory.

Today, the market was abuzz with another news on Satyam. This time with the (t)rumour that Vivek Paul, the erstwhile Vice Chairman of Wipro, is touted to be the next CEO of Satyam Computers.

We don’t know how far this is true but it is believed that his entry to the company will bring a lot of confidence amongst the investors.

So, who is  Vivek Paul ? Let’s take a sneak peek at Vivek’s corporate biography

1. Vivek Paul is known in the outsourcing industry as a turnaround king. He turned Wipro from a mere $150 million company to a billion dollar IT giant by 2005 – all in a span of seven years.
2. Vivek joined a Private Equity Firm, Texas Pacific Group as a partner in 2005 but resigned from the firm in Dec 2008. Some say because he wanted to take active participation in Satyam. In fact, it is believed that Vivek wanted to lead a management buy out of Satyam or mount a take over bid through CSC (Computer Services Corp)
3. Vivek Paul was named among the best managers by Business Week, among the top 30 most respected global CEOs of the world by Barrons and among the top influential business managers by Time magazine.

So, with all these credentials and a company like Satyam which has a plethora of challenges to be tackled including streamlining the finances, reassuring the clients, instilling faith in the company, winning the confidence of the employees and most importantly proving to its shareholders that for Satyam it’s a new beginning, Vivek has certainly a lot to win over.

The question is will Vivek (Wisdom) take over Satyam (Truth) as its CEO ?

Time will tell…For now, see this interview by TiECon

Image Credit: Eleaf

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