The drama at Ratan Tata’s company, and ways startup CEOs can avoid it

There are ways to avoid sadness in the boardroom. Photo credit : ampak / 123RF.

“You can resist an invading army; you cannot resist an idea whose time has come,” Victor Hugo said. Take its antithesis, and one may say no matter how much you push a new concept, it won’t stick (read, your people will rebel) if its time has not come.

The ongoing drama at one of India’s most powerful and storied business houses, which suddenly and unceremoniously fired its CEO last night, could easily be a study in that.

It is the quintessential boardroom drama – new CEO brings in too many changes, pisses off too many people, and gets fired. Dig a little deeper, and we can see a number of easily avoidable minefields that Tata Sons walked into.

Here’s a study in how to avoid such unpleasantness in our own companies, especially if we are leading a startup with neither the Tatas’ muscle, nor legacy.

Don’t bring the sledgehammer

Photo Credit: Simon Liu

Veteran journalist Barkha Dutt says CEO Cyrus Mistry’s ousting was long coming, mainly because he was pushing too many changes all at once.

There was also growing disquiet in the Tata Group that Mistry was “selling the family jewels” and “undoing all that the Tatas had built” by deciding to sell the empire’s entire steel operation in the UK, which was in bad shape on account of cheap Chinese imports, soaring costs, and weak demand, she reports. Lesson: don’t do that.

You may be convinced what you are doing is for the best of the company, but bring everyone on board first. The company is built as a result of contributions from a bunch of people. Just because you can doesn’t mean you should bulldoze your way through all of that. Let the idea’s time come.

Don’t piss off the board

Photo credit: PourquoiPas.

This one’s a no-brainer. Look, the board exists for a reason. They are the checks and balances on your reign. It is easy for us to fancy ourselves as the next Steve Jobs, but truth is, very few of us are.

So it doesn’t matter if you have good intentions at heart, and it may be tempting to insult the board’s “intellectual capabilities,” but control that urge.

The importance of communication

Keep your friends close

Don’t play petty