'ISB will help shape the visions of aspiring management students'

The restructuring exercises at Indian corporates and talk of the New Economy making rapid strides in India have captured the imagination of management guru Professor Sumantra Ghoshal.

He is also enthused by the fact that his new book, Managing Radical Change: What Indian Companies Must Do to Become World-class, which he co-authored with Gita Piramal, business historian, and Christopher A Bartlett, Daewoo Professor of Business Administration at the Harvard Business School, has been well received by Indian managers.

What, however, excites him most these days is the upcoming Indian School of Business in Hyderabad, a project close to his heart, a project that is expected to emerge as a world-class business school. Prof Ghoshal, who holds the Robert P Bauman Chair in Strategic Leadership at the London Business School, is to assume his new assignment as the founding dean of the ISB shortly. He is currently sewing up plans for roadshows for the school in major cities of the world.

During his latest visit to Bombay, Prof Ghoshal outlined his vision for the dream project in an exclusive interview with Y Siva Sankar. Excerpts:

The ISB has been in the news since 1998. Are you happy with the progress the project has made so far?

Yes. I think it's a complex process. The process of selecting the location took time. It had to. There are processes to be gone through. But after the site was finalised, the progress actually has been very rapid. If you look... in terms of the construction project, this is a fairly large construction project. It's a $50-million-plus construction. To finish that from the time of taking over the site within 12 months, is no small achievement.

So progress from the time the site was finalised actually has been outstanding. Before that, there was this process of where to locate, different ideas, different viewpoints. And, overall, I think, yes, it has made good progress.

The most critical resource of the ISB is this coalition that has been put together. Absolutely startling coalition (governing board, academic council and executive committee of the ISB) if you look in terms of the international companies, the Indian companies, the business schools and so on. To build such a coalition takes time. So, overall, the progress so far is impressive.

There is a certain degree of scepticism regarding the coalition. One view is that the luminaries may have merely lent their names to the project, that in reality this collection of names may not mean anything for the ISB. What do you have to say?

Look, at the end of the day, a business school is not as good as its building, not as good as its governing body, not as good as anything; it is as good as its students.

So what the ISB will become ultimately, will depend on its students. That is its greatest strength. On the one side, the talent pool that is available in India... the world recognises the talent pool. The very best of India is the very best anywhere in the world -- people know that.

On the other side, to the extent that it can acquire talent from Asia and the rest of the world, that would be the critical factor. I think the composition of the governing board and the supporting companies is a great resource. But you can take nothing for granted.

Nobody in the world is going to do things for you. You have to do things to deserve people doing things for you. So as I take it, the advantage we have is, if we can truly create a good MBA programme, there is no doubt in my mind that Henry Paulson of Goldman Sachs will tell his youngsters, at least in leisure, "Consider it". He can't tell them, "Go, do it." Those days are gone. But he can support it, he can talk about it, he has credibility.

Similarly, if you do really good executive education programme, I've no doubts that Sir Mark Moody-Stuart (chairman of the committee of managing directors of the Royal Dutch/Shell Group) will tell his regional director for Asia, "This may be a good place for hosting Shell's programmes." That is all that this structure provides.

Ultimately, they are not substitutes for getting great students, putting up great programmes, getting good faculty. If you can't do those, one of this will get devalued. So that responsibility remains.

The ISB is seeking students from all over the world. What makes you confident that you will be able to attract the best among them? Why should a student hoping to enroll at, say, Harvard or Wharton or Kellogg's or Stanford, consider joining the ISB?

There are two answers to that. One is the official answer. The official answer goes as follows: look, you are getting your MBA in one year. If you actually look at the contact hours, I believe, in terms of the content of the programme, in terms of specialised knowledge -- you have to specialise in finance or entrepreneurship or technology -- you will get exactly the same quality as any other world-class business school.

The people teaching you are not the best of any one school, they are the best across three or four schools. So, in effect, it can well be better than any one school can offer. And you get all of these for $15,000, whereas it costs you three times or four times as much if you want to do it at Stanford or Harvard or wherever. So there is a possible space in pure technical terms.

But on the other hand, I think the more interesting answer is, human beings come in all shapes, sizes and beliefs and can always be in America, in Germany, in India, or in Malaysia... a bunch of these kids, these people who want to do the adventurous thing. They want to do something new, they want their highs.

My hope is that ultimately there would be opportunities to shape those visions. It (the ISB) is a new institution that is based on a new set of passion. There are always a few people -- take any perspective, there is a bunch of people in the world who will say, "It's okay, I will give it a good shot." That's the student I want.

The thing that we will do is -- the ISB is also has a set of policies -- we want three years' experience, tuition and so on. And the one thing that we will absolutely hold on to -- it is the competition for talent.

If there is a truly talented student in India or abroad, if for whatever reason he or she is unwilling or unable to meet our regular rules, we will break every rule and that is one thing I would like the prospective candidates to understand.

If you believe you are good, apply. No matter which of the ISB rules you don't meet, if you are good, we will break every rule to get you, because the world is witnessing a competition for talent. We understand that. We are not sitting and saying, "You apply, we will select." We will go proactively out of it. However, it will take time. I am aware of that.

When did you make up your mind about coming back to India and joining the ISB?

First thing is, coming back is a stronger expression than I will use. My role in the future: half time I will remain in a faculty in the London Business School, half the time I will contribute to the ISB as its founding dean.

There's an important reason to understand the half-time factor. One of the problems that you face in academic life is, most people... if you take a dean's role, you kind of give up research and writing. And I think both for the individual and the institution, it's negative.

If the ISB is to have an academic culture based on research and creation of intellectual capital, then for me as a dean to continue in my research, my writing, actually would contribute to building the culture of the ISB.

The reason why I protected this half time is, I absolutely want to protect my academic and scholarly part of my life. So that this time is utilised for research and writing. The other half time is for managing the ISB. And that half time for research and writing will be based in the London Business School.

When did I decide? It was really not so much a decision of coming back to India. The reason it is not, I will tell you. I've left India for 20-plus years. But I visit India four to six times a year. In that sense, I do not feel I've really left India. When I visit India, it's not as if I've come to a strange place. My family is here, my parents are here, my brother is here, my friends are here.

At the same time, there is no particular desire as if I'm abroad and I need to come back or any of that. Also my kids are now grown up, they are working and so on.

So it was much more coming to ISB than really coming back to India in some emotional sense. The ISB is an extremely exciting opportunity.

I was asked whether I'd take the deanship about two to two-and-a-half years ago when Keki Dadiseth was part of the dean search committee. At that time, I had very honestly told Keki that I will not take the role primarily because I didn't believe I had the competence to fulfil the role.

I know what a dean's job means. My role is as an individual, somewhat iconoclastic academic. I think it was Kuko who said, "If I believed it's my fate to be taken seriously, I'd never be as radical as I had been in my thoughts and words." Same is true for me. I am an individual, I am outside any policy structures, I think what I think, I say what I say.

A dean's role is a very different role. Also, the administration, the management, the keeping people together, those are not my strengths. So I said no (to Keki Dadiseth in the beginning).

Now what has happened is, we have evolved a different model, which would be collective leadership. We will have somebody as a full-time resident executive dean who would be experienced in that role, somebody who would have proven competence in that role, perhaps as a dean in a major international business school for some significant time. Then I can complement that role with some of the things that I can bring to the table.

This arrangement simply makes it doable. So that's then is the story. When did this decision happen? About two months ago. Rajat Gupta (CEO, McKinsey & Co and chairman of the ISB) called me and said, 'Look, this is what you had said. This is the arrangement. How do you feel?' I said, 'It's okay. This makes sense. Let's do it.'

Was not money a consideration at all?

Aaah! Look, again, this may sound very arrogant, but the reality is, taking this role would cost me a lot of money no matter how much the salary ISB may pay me, because salary is very small part of my income.

My large income is speaking, consulting; it is internationally done, and if I'm spending half my time in Hyderabad, so, no matter what, it is going to end up in a significant reduction in my income. But that's par for the course. My kids are now out. I don't really need to worry very much at this stage. So that's okay.

SEE ALSO:

Oct 17, 2000: Bombay Dyeing episode is a good incident, says guru Ghoshal

Sep 29, 2000: Sumantra Ghoshal is founding dean of Indian School of Business

December 20, 1999: AP begins work on dream b-school

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