Tea Seller and Five Lessons of

Good Governance Under the roof of a brand like Confident Governance, whenever we see

Global Developments that emphasize successful Governance, we like to

write about it. While I love to drink tea, the title of this post is very

relevant as you shall see. We would like to discuss the recently

concluded 2014 election in the World’s largest democracy, India. What

does this have to do with Governance and Tea Drinking ? Read on to

find the answer….

This was the largest democratic election in mankind’s history so

far. There were 815 million voters right from the Indian Ocean in South

to Ladakh and Leh in Himalayas, making it the largest ever election

without a single untoward incident. See the infographic to understand

the hugeness of these figures.

In a region frayed with petty politics and small-minded issues no leader

can successfully drive the agenda of growth. Yet an entrepreneurial son

of a tea seller who grew up selling tea at Railway station in a village in

India in his father’s small business emerged as the leader of largest

Democracy in the world. The amazing thing is that India’s new Prime

Minister Mr. Modi completed this amazing journey of his personal

career from a poor Tea Selling boy to Prime Minister solely focusing on

only one main theme “Good Governance is Good for Growth”. Good

Governance gets lost in Government many times but the success of Mr.

Modi piqued my curiosity to peek deeper into his evolution and research

on why Governance is the driver for Growth and what lessons can

normal Boards and Business leaders take from his story on important

matters of Management and Leadership.

He was born as a poor, underprivileged son of

a tea-seller in a rural town of Vadnagar, where

he used to sell “chai” (tea) to passengers at the

local train station. From those earlier days and

many years of struggle , he rose through

India’s political process to become the

disciplined and successful Chief Minister of Gujarat, unarguably the

most business friendly and prosperous State in India.

Indian farmers, service men, business folks and majority of the voters of

all varieties and stripes selected Good Governance over petty politics.

His Governance can be an inspiration for any enterprise. Let’s have a

look at the five key reasons why a humble entrepreneurial boy who

started out helping his father selling tea now can teach success of Good

Governance to the Board of Directors

1) Hard Work and Vision

As Benjamin Franklin said “Vision without

implementation is Hallucination”. So for effective

Governance, foresight has to be complemented with

effective and creative implementation. Mr. Modi

demonstrated this in his tenure as Chief Minister for

one of the most Business friendly state in India. Any

company has to be technically competent in order to

survive a cohort of massive competition. Moreover the company should

be focused towards ensuring client satisfaction with the product/service

delivered.

A company should also continuously strive to develop a complementary

professional eco-system (internally and externally). All of this is attained

through razor-sharp focus and untiring hard work. Mr Modi reportedly

has never taken an official vacation in last decade as a Chief Minister Of

Gujarat – that’s a tall order but certainly the ethos of hard work and the

Tone at the top comes through.

2) Accountability starts at top

Governance starts at the top when leaders walk the

walk instead of talking the talk. Modi has done this by

making himself and his office of PMO accountable by

removing lot of uncertainties in decision-making. This

is not novel in corporate world but is unheard of when it comes to

governing a country of India’s dimension. This solidifies novel approach

towards governance where the CEO/CFO and the board have more

transparency and decision-making clarity over policy matters. This is

also what all entrepreneurs should learn, to take responsibility for each

and every corporate decision and trying and improving rather than

getting killed by “Paralysis by Analysis” . The board, the CEO/CFO and

the senior management should take the charge of embracing, piloting

and slowly but surely adopting Emerging Trends and Technologies and

other initiatives to enable Growth of their product/service.

3) Metrics and measurement are essential

Mr Modi has proven in his management style that he

wants to measure everything. The new government

has stated “inflation control” as one of the top

priorities of the government, for which various

measures like building cold chains, rural

electrification, etc…are being enforced. It is obvious

from this illustration that metrics and measurement are vital for any

organization’s strategy for profit. While in past getting good metrics was

a challenge, with onslaught of Big Data and other analytical tools, it is

now more that ever easier to measure progress on multiple dimensions

of any process. An organization must leverage Emerging Trends and

Technologies for getting improved metrics.

Business metrics and performance measures provide dashboard

assessment that help in channeling the strategic path of a firm. Metrics

must be aligned for appropriate Governance needs such as

accountability purposes

organizational improvement purposes

efficient strategic planning

quality improvement and

business process re-engineering

The old adage “If it Can’t be Measured It’s not done“ is absolutely the

thing to keep in mind here.

4) Creative Resource Allocation

Mr. Modi has leveraged not only existing resources

efficiently but he has uncannily used new technology

to turn old resources into new channels of

effectiveness. Case in point is his election campaign

which used Social Media to complement the massive

Indian electorate and reach even poor farmers and villagers via cell

phones. The number of grass-root Organizers working with Mr. Modi

and his man power remained the same though the leverage of new

resources in Technology and new Innovations in media enabled

unbelievably large Outreach.

This creative resource allocation results into increased efficiency and

productivity for any Organization. An Organization should allocate it’s

resources in such a way that the work on the idea of “Minimum Input,

Maximum Output”.

Effective allocation results in Growth and Success. But many a times it

becomes difficult because of the constant struggle of various

departments within the company for the limited pool of resources.

Creative Resource Allocation can be done by

Conducting an Audit of how the Resources are utilized currently

Creating a plan of how to better utilize the Resources

Eliminating chances of wastage of Resources

5) Uniform Transparent Standards

Transparency starts at the top.

This is easier said than done, but

in past Mr. Modi has

demonstrated this as a chief

minister.Now as Prime Minister,

his cabinet is leveraging new tools

and enabling completely transparent online auctions for government

contracts, tenders and natural resources,leading into a transparent

Governance, which generates more trust from Citizens of the Nation.

In a similar fashion, all enterprises should maintain transparent standards

of functioning to develop a healthy atmosphere for the employees as

well as the stakeholders. Often times we have seen Boards fail at this

when the transparency they desire from the field is not being put in

practice in their own Management and Leadership.

Transparency is a vital factor of a healthy Corporate Governance. Today

Transparency is taking on a new meaning of a more Comprehensive and

Proactive disclosure. Corporate Governance in today’s worldwide milieu

has become more complicated and dynamic due to increased regulatory

requirements and greater scrutiny thereby creating increased

responsibilities for Board of Directors to conform with meticulous

Governance principles.

We will keep monitoring progress of Governance in an Emerging

Economy like India and more importantly learn lessons continuously

from Best Practices around the world. At ConfidentGovernance.com our

mission is to “Democratize Governance” Worldwide by making it easier

and less complicated so that everyone from Governments to private

enterprises and startups can benefit from Good Governance. What we

learn from this experience of Mr. Modi is that Good governance is not

only Good for business but great for the Customers and Stakeholders,

which in Mr. Modi’s case are the Citizens of India. The amazing story

here is that 1 billion of world’s approximately 7 billion people chose to

focus on Good Governance and Growth in selecting their democratic

leader rather than other petty issues. An enterprise who focuses on the

above five Key Elements of Good Governance will surely be

CONFIDENT to grow by leaps and bounds. Would love to hear your

thoughts on the Five Key elements of Good Governance.

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