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Recognizing the need for grooming leaders in the Indian IT industry, Infosys Technologies Ltd. has emerged as the first Indian company to setup an institute exclusively for the purpose of developing leaders to sustain Infosys' legacy... Early200l saw the birth ofInfosys leadership Institute IL! with the visionto be a globally recognized institution thatnurtures leaders and advances the field ofleadership development. Over thepast decade the growth wimessed at Infosys coupled with globalization, provided Infosys the impetus to focus on developing leaders for the future. It was in keeping with thisvision that Narayana Murthy, the founder and chairman of the company, carefully put together a management council, which is an advisory body that took strategic decisions about the company. During the management council meetings Murthy noticed that young achievers in the company were hesitant to come forth with their suggestions. On encouraging them to speak, Murthy found their suggestions and thoughts had alot of substance and could help the company significantly. These people had not contributed to the discussions for the sole reason as they were afraid of transgressing hierarchy. This bothered Murthy and front this concern was born his grand plan to build a leadership institute that would groom and develop leaders from promising Irifoscions, irrespective of hierarchy and give them the opportunity to shape the future of the company they were helping to build. The institutes main objectives are jotted around the same, which includes preparing the companyto manage its global growth anddiversification objectives; to prepare employees to face the complexities of the market and the rapidly changing environment; and, to create higher customer-value through thought leadership around both the science and practice of developing leaders. In fact, The charter of IL! is to create a formal, defined system to develop leadership and management capabilities in Infoscions by enabling the immediate execution of current strategy, and to ensure a high probability of board succession," says, MathewBarnec the head ofleadership development of IL!. Thus, the institute focuses only on the senior-most and high-potential leaders called Tier Leaders and strive to help these leaders realize their goals and ultimately succeed the board of directors, IL! is committed to both relevance and rigor in equal amounts. "We work toward helping execute the business strategy
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and ensuring that Infosys has appropriate bench strength of leaders to take on senior leadership positions," asserts Barney. To start creating a robust leadership development process lnfosys defined leadership cornpetencies based on its vision and core values and defined along four broad dimensionsviz.Work. People, Technologyand Business. Each of these was further amplified into smaller operational elements. Further, a nine pillar dimension model of leadership was developed that describes leadership effectiveness in behavioral terms. The nine pillars were 360 degree feedback, developmental assignments, Infosys culture workshop, developmental relationships, leadership skill training, fedbackintensive programs, system processlearning, community empathy and action learning, "All nine and Infosys' leadership traits and values are assessed annually, using multi-source or 360 degree feedback approaches. Multi-source surveys ask each stakeholder about the leader, including subordinates, peers, managers, mentors and customers,' explains Barney. Recently, ILl began using computer adaptive 360 degree assessments known as the Leadership Journey Series. While computer-adaptive tests have been used for over 30 years in physician certification and academia, IL! is one of the first institutes to use these methods that ensure short, but highlyaccurate andprecise information. "Importantly, all are based on the most practical method for giving feedback, to better focus leaders on the area's most potent for growth. All action plans are documented in individualized personal development plans that are discussed with assigned mentors including chiefmentor, Narayana Murthy,' adds Barney. ILl has continued to evolve over the years, with a significant shift in strategy in 2009, when it was restructured to focus exclusively on the senior-most leaders and high potentials with advanced leadership methods. In 2009, the Inlosys board of directors launched a new 360 survey for themselves and unit heads, which was used successfullyto plan development of the seniormost leaders, role modeling the importance of leader

By Ant Shikari

Infosys pipelines its leaders through Infosys Leadersh: Institute that grooms, develops and provides leaders the platform to grow fora globalized environment
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360-degree feedback: Systematically data is collected about a person's performance and capabilities from a wide range of co-workers including peers, direct reportees, the manager and customers both internal and external. ILl uses a comprehensive toot that is aligned to the Leadership competencies. The feedback received from this 360-degree process is used as the basis for the preparation of individual personal development plans PUPs, which are the blueprints that guide the individual in acquiring new skills and enhancing existing skills, all aligned to the basic Leadership cornpetencies model. Each individual is assigned an ILl faculty member to help prepare the PUP and put it in action. Development assignments lAs: High-potential employees are given experience in diverse functions through internal job rotations and crossfunctional assignments. OAs enable employees to gather practical leadership skills outside his or her zone of experience. Infosys Culture IC workshops: These workshops help participants understand the core values, purpose and processes followed in the context of leadership development. The design of these workshops allows for extensive interaction among participants leading to reinforcement of the Infosys culture, and ensuring enough empowerment to guarantee adherence and refinement to the culture of the organization. Development relationships: These are one-on-one relationships in work settings that facilitate the sharing and transfer of knowledge and experience between individuaLs. The Infosys leadership development model views mentoring as a developmental relationship in the context of leadership development. A `mentoring for Leadership pilot program is operationaL and earnings from this program will be used to refine and extend this element of leadership development across the organization. Leadership skills training: EmpLoyees go through a series of learning interventions on topics of relevance to leadership. XLI has started the process with the `Leaders Teach Series'. These are workshops conducted by the board of directors with help from the III faculty. This series includes workshops by the chairman and chief mentor, the managing director and CEO, and other members of the board. The `Leaders Teach Series' resulted from the belief that the company is the campus, the business is the curriculum, Leaders shall teach". Feedback intensive programs: These are intensive behavioural interventions, which are based on formal and informal feedback received from individuals that the employee interfaces with. They are structured in a manner so that the participants receive and give feedback in a nonthreatening environment and yield a workable plan for setting goals for continued personal and professional development and strategies for attaining them. Systemic process teaming: This is an intervention that enables participants to view an organization as a whole system comprising innumerable interacting sub-systems. It yields plans for continuous improvement in systemic processes and details how an individual will initiate such improvements. Action learning: This is a team-based real-time experience used to solve real, systemic and unresolved organizational problems. It is a pragmatic process aimed at yielding a resolution to the `problem' or `issue' that has been identified, and a workable plan for setting goats for continued development, with strategies for attaining them, Community empathy: ILl aspires to create, on a regular and structured basis, opportunities for high-potential candidates to enroll themselves in causes outside Infosys that contribute to the greater good of the less fortunate. The importance of community empathy in overall leadership development is in line with the fundamental belief of the organization that social conscience needs to be nurtured and enhanced in each one of its present and potential leaders. 14 development to the rest of the organization. Also, last year, each tier leader was assigned an IL! expert to be their individual counselor, andsinglepointofcontactforall ILlofferings, including the new Leadership Journey Series Computer Adaptive assessments. On grooming leaders, says Barney, "Our approach is holistic; to ensure the full range of leadership development interventions are both necessary and sufficient to grow junior leaders into board members.' These include formal classes with external experts, talks by tier leaders called `Leaders Teach', books, and feedback from assessments. The `Leaders Teach Series' are workshops conducted by the hoard of directors, executive committee and tier leaders with help from the ILL faculty Some of the areas under development include advanced virtual leadership scenarios, which allow leaders to practice the most complicated leadership behaviors in a sale, simulated environment. Also, IL! is accountable for applied research that is both rigorous and relevant to Infosys business problems. "We have begun to establish relationshipswithworld renowned leadership scientist-practitioners, such as Professor David Day of the University of Western Australia, for a 3 year program of research and teaching related to accelerating individual leader development," updates Barney Apart from imparting knowledge, the top management of Infosys, including the chairman, the CEO and the board of directors are closely involved in the design and roll out of programs forthenextgeneration ofleaders, making this initiative a unique blend of pragmatic expertise and professional experience. In addition, ILl faculty consists of stall members with global experience in the science and practice of leader development; senior leaders from Infosys and eminent academicians. LU, currently, has three Ph.D. faculties, including the head, Dr. Barney one in training and the third one is masterstrained. However, ILl is a very small team of six, one external consultant a former Infosys employee, and two support staff to support 750 leaders. To increase the ILl team, says Barney, "We are activelyrecruitingleadership experts in a hot labor market." The institute has dished out several leaders who have been successful in implementing their knowledge in various interventions that aid in solving real business issues. Vor example, ILl worked closely with Infosys' successful Finacle unit on their plan to grow to sIB dollars, from its current !JSD $250M. Finacle, Infosys largest and most successful software product has received the highest Iiut4At4 Cniw

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ratings from analysts, and has significant marketpzesence in dozens of countries around the world. "The challenge however, was to scale globally, including new markets with leaders,,who could sell, and implement Finacle's banking solution to banking boards. IL! worked closely with the entire Pinacle leadership team on a series of interventions to improve the unit head and his top leaders' on time management skills; empowerment and delegation; organizational process improvement using Lean Six Sigma and Dr. Barney's Cue See model; and organization design," illustrates Barney As he describes, "This resulted in a powerful business case to investinFinacle thatwas recognized byonelnfosys board member as `The Big Bet' for the company. ILl's first patent, now pending, was developed in response to specific leadership challenges faced by Finacle's leadership team and leveraging original IL! intellectual property IL! demonstrated that its early interventions, such as our `Time Quadrants' intervention was effective through formal Rasch Measurement Analyses; and ultimately our work in collaboration with Finacle's leadership team demonstrated our relevance with rigor." A second example oflU's success is, in thisyear, with Infosys' I3IJS unit head and senior leadership team to define their strategy to grow past$1B. "Using Dr. Barney's Cue See Model, including self-paced learning, the entire leadership team identified their bottlenecks, and set action plans that set the tone for the leadership team's action plans, and team coordination for the next fiscal year. The unit head was pleased to recommend this approach to his peers, as a useful model to ensure ILl relevance and rigor," elucidates Barney. Since the new ILl was finalized at the end of 2009, and is finalizing governance measurements, including measurable impact with Infosys' chief risk officer, with encouragement from the risk subcommittee of the boani, "We will he systematically collecting and reporting on these data to ensure internal operational excellence, de-risk succession and providing appropriate measurements to academic research partners," states Barney. On future plans of IL!, Barney shares, "We are actively creating development roadmaps that include advanced simulations for leaders to practice difficult and riskyskills in a safe environment. One research area includes advanced psychometrics in virtual environments for better feedback to learners, mentors and managers that are less tedious than alternatives. We are continuing to expand our network of expert academics to teach, and publish with us. Our first book will come out later in 2010 entitled, `Authentic Leadership at Infosys', designed to teach Infosys leaders and to provide a platform to get closer to customers and prospective customers with Infosys thought leadership." "IL!wants to be knownfor evidence-basedleadership; and for using lnfosys strengths software as a significant lever to grow leaders. Besides, we welcome dialog and partnerships with others who embrace authentic leadership with measurable impact," he adds.
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