New Age CEO: Soft skills can win over hard bargains

NEW DELHI: Jagdish Khattar, Maruti MD, is in Los Angeles with his IPO roadshow. Top guns from the platinum chip Capital Fund are listening to him. They have tough questions — profit projection, margins, new plans, new technology, hard numbers...There’s a guy in the corner whom Khattar ignores. He asks no questions, just listens.
Khatter shows the group the picture of a family — father, mother, two children — on a two-wheeler.It’s raining and they are looking longingly at a small car with a happy couple in it.
"That’s India," says Khattar, "and this is why we have a future." The silent guy now speaks up: "What makes you so passionate?" "That’s how I am," comes the answer. "Who’s your role model?" he asks. "It’s personal, sir," answers Khattar. "Never mind, who’s it?"
"My father," says the Maruti MD. "He always said, ‘Work hard and leave the rest to God’." "What advise do you have for your children?" "I try to give them the same advise, but you know what it’s like Sir, they also have their own ideas." Khattar sends a slip to ask who this person was. It comes back, "He is God. The chairman of Capital." God put his money into Maruti.
What we have here is the emergence of a new kind of business leader who is able to take on the world not only by the strength of his balance-sheet, Ivy League B-school degree or Armani suit, but his strong values. Some call it Level 5 Management, which focuses on soft-skills like leadership style, relationships, parenting skills. Others call it the non-balance-sheet characteristics.
Dilip Cherian, chief of Perfect Relations, an image management company, says, "The balance-sheet was the old tool of assessment of a company. But an assessment of the leader’s value-system is a short-cut to figure out his business values now." Particularly, in a post-Enron, post-Worldcom world, where there’s scepticism of pure balance-sheets.
Uday Kotak, Executive VP and MD, Kotak Mahindra, who has lead many roadshows explains: "When a fund manager looks into the eye of a CEO, reads his body language, it’s the beginning of a relationship of trust — the ability of a person to touch a chord in such a human interaction is critical."
While Infosys chief mentor N R Narayana Murthy leads the way, Azim Premji of Wipro, Ratan Tata, Dr Pratap Reddy of Apollo, Brijmohan Munjal of Hero Honda, Sunil Mittal of Bharti and Iflex, Dr Reddy’s, Ranbaxy, Marico and Jet Airways are some people and corporations who are able to impress investors with their value system.
Prithvi Haldea, MD, Prime Database, a company which tracks primary markets says: "The data presented to fund mangers is always taken with a pinch of salt. What converts an interest in a company into a decision to invest are the non-tangibles."
The ability of a CEO to present his vision, to convince a fund manager that he believes in what he says, in himself and his company’s future, are not B-school fundas, but fundamental to his personality and values.