Rocket Singh Phenomenon Hits Indian Corporate Culture
Posted on 09. Jan, 2011 by Ajay Goyal in All Write
My recent meetings with Indian entrepreneurs often run into a common theme : loss of value system and integrity among a growing number of young managers.
I made it a point this time to explore the depth and extent of this problem that had so far dominated informal discussions only. No less than fourteen friends and clients told me of all levels of managers stealing clients, undercutting and undermining the company pricing, corrupt practices, stealing confidential databases and business plans and more. Only one said he felt safe with his employees and had a corporate culture of trust. Two others reacted angrilyto the suggestion there was anything wrong with a person walking away with a company client – their own history is a testament to the quicki route to success when managers steal from their shareholders and owners.
The phenomenon was captured in a 2009 hit film Rocket Singh: Salesman of the Year The film lionizes a corporate thief who stumbles into a computer sales company after barely mustering enough grades to graduate. Since the Indian film hero can do no wrong – the lead character has a good honest heart too. He is a modern Robin Hood who steals from his own employer and cheats on his company so he can provide better service to honest customers. He finds four allies within the company who start running a shadow company from the premises of their employer.
The film shows how it is now mainstream in popular Indian culture to steal from the private sector employer. In real world, there are no real heroes whistleblowing on their employers for shoddy and substandard products, delayed deliveries, fradulant sales and general thievery. Service standards and quality in the rocketing Indian private sector remain dismal. Instead of using the consumer protection laws and media to expose and subvert corporate looters – a growing number of executives are joining the bandwagon of loot-when-you-can.
According to insiders bribery in Indian private sector is nearly as common and prevalant as in government. Vendors often grease palms of buyers even in some blue chip companies. In Rocket Singh, the hero starts out as a rebel against corporate coruption. It offends his middle class psyche that a company should pay – and buyer should demand – a bribe for business. But it is when he reaches out to his fellow disgruntled employees – a techie addicted to pron, a receptionist passed over for promotion, a super-greedy sales manager lacking in any ethics and a office-peon who wants to make money without risking anything and would rather work all his life serving tea and steal from his company than stand up for himself and be an entrepreneur.To this rag tag group he adds another partner in crime — a failed entrepreneur who is also his lover.
The filmmakers have inadvertantly depicted the state of moral decay in real world even though their intentions were quite the opposite. They set out to seek sympathy for the “exploited” managers and achieve this goal very well. The film was superhit with those at the bottom of corporate ladder.
There is no organization and no business without its share of problems. But sStealing from an enterprise is no way of rebelling. Real rebels stand up for the values and ethics they believe in. Great companies do no start as a reaction to someone. They must come from entrepreurial passion, an inner zeal and competitiveness, a will to create and grow something new and different. Only great robberies are usually the result of great reactions and rebellions against established institutions. In the end- it is always easy to criticze and undermine someone else. The hordes of young Indians pouring into the companies that cannot keep pace with their own growth need new life lessons in old Indian values of honesty, integrity, hardwork and truth.
Nothing should prevent a young Che Guevara wannabe from telling a customer that the washing being sold to him will not work, that the car he is buying will probably burn, that the construction project being done by his company will not complete or collapse before it finishes and probably kill a few. Anyone can go on and be a rebel but such angst should not result in another mutation of corruption in yet another company. To see a fellow pilot drunk on controls of an aircraft should not lead to ” lets start an airline where pilots wont be drunk – with the drunk pilot as a shareholder.”
When English East Indian Company started expanding its tentacles into the Indian subcontinent it needed entrepreneur managers, warriors, accountants and foot soldiers. There was no way for London to control these men from afar – blackberry and gemail were about three hundreds years away. Many of these Indian managers later returned home as “Nabobs” looting and stealing from their campaigns and reigns in India. Many a British aristocratic family have this loot at the core of their wealth. But then, British empire was not the making of these corrupt rascals. It was a handful of young men that were deeply anchored in their faith and unshakable in their values of honesty and loyalty that took and then ruled India.
The loss of values among the generation that is supposed to make India’s “tryst with its destiny” is now so widepsread and deep that it threatens to undermine the very fabric of modern India. The answer is not in prosecution or criminal law – it is in re-education of India and Indians in their own values.
Rocket Singh or Jerry McGuire are not my poster boys. Nandan Nilekani, Narayan Krishnamurthy, Azim Premji, Vijay Mallaya and thousands of first generation Indian entrepreneurs. The long standing traditions of Tata should be the preached at business schools. Instead, Indian education and business schools have guerilla tactics being pushed down the throats of a whole generation that will go to any extent to get rich quick.
These young Indians need to be told that entrepreneurship is not about “quick rich schemes.” It is a process that is laden with its own daily rewards provided its done with passion and for the right purpose. Nothing is beyond reach for the young Indian – no goal too far and no ambition too high – but the road to prosperity does not start with a petty crime.
