The Bihar Election Verdict : management lessons from the field of politics

I was very impressed to read about the meticulous efforts of PK ( Prashant Kishor), the mastermind and strategist behind Nitish Kumar's election machinery. From the two month head start on the outreach program to the "Har Ghar Dastak" program to changing the outdoor campaign to a bright red and yellow color scheme from the traditional green and white of the JDU and RJD, each move was simply brilliant and unconventional.....and based on well established management principles from the corporate world. 

That got me to reflect on the management lessons behind the NDA defeat and the Bihar verdict in general. And surprisingly enough , if one looks at it dispassionately,  I found many I could relate to from my years in managing large corporations.

1) Branding and Expectation Management : A strong brand is very useful to push the product but the brand itself must be backed by content and not only promises. It is especially true for new brands when launched with the help of an advertising blitzkrieg. After the blitz, performance needs to follow for the brand to remain sustainable. Nike's "Write the Future" tagline to their campaign for the 2010 FIFA World Cup failed miserably as the major stars and their teams depicted therein failed to qualify and Spain and Netherlands,who were depicted as losers, made it to the finals ! Brazilian Ronaldinho,featured prominently,  did not even make the cut ! Or Vodafone Egypt's ad in the aftermath of the Arab Spring revolution in 2011 where it depicted a young man symbolising the voice of Egypt,and that of Vodafone, thus implying Vodafone's prominence in the revolution, where in fact it had cut its services during the uprising on Government Orders !

The similarity is obvious......Modi is a strong brand but is fairly new in the context of Indian national level politics. He has been a  great communicator, bolstered by  terrific PR and ad campaigns during 2014 elections but most of his "ache din aane wale hain" remain just that.... aane wale hain ( still to arrive ! ). The fact that the Govt has not been able to pass any major legislative business in parliament including the most important GST and land bills,often touted as the most far reaching reforms, is a case in point. Those who follow economic affairs would appreciate the impact of the huge governance deficit and the mess he inherited from UPA II apart from the challenges of the global economy,  but to the uninitiated with sky high expectations, this is a serious let down and affects the credibility of the brand ambassador. And this lays bare the perils of a presidential type of campaigning .......which, though effective, can very quickly unravel as all failures ( small and big )  too are apportioned only to the leader in question. In the game corporations play with the financial markets, expectation management thus is the key to stock prices :   and seasoned CFOs are trained to consistently under promise and over deliver. Examples like  Mohan Das Pai, ex CFO Infosys, Franciso D Souza, CEO, Cognisant, and others are not far to seek. 

2) Empowering local teams and capturing the voice of the customer : Empowerment of managers closest to the customer is an oft repeated by line but not always followed in corporate life. There are enough examples of star business managers in corporate HQ who are unable to achieve breakthrough objectives if the branch/regional teams are weak, or do not have a strong regional leader, and are thus out of touch with the real needs of the customer : Digital,Nokia, Motorola, Lucent all had tremendous corporate leadership and technology but not the pulse of the customer.The reverse is also true where strong local leadership has proven to be very successful in realising customer fulfilling propositions by augmenting a strong central leadership team whilst providing accurate customer feedback in the designing of newer products, pricing, etc : Xerox, Airtel, Caterpillar, Samsung,Unilever, etc...

Who was the NDA face for Bihar ? Cannot remember ! Policies, ticket distribution and go to market strategies with rallies and campaigns were all crafted and designed by Amit Shah and his team from Delhi. The pulse of the local "bihari voter" was missing in this high profile campaign but one with a low emotive connect. Popular leaders like Shatrughan Sinha who were vociferous with their displeasure, and had pre-warned of the consequences,were sidelined and simply ignored.

3) Strategic Alliances :  Successful strategic alliances is the cornerstone of most businesses today....more so in politics too as has been proven time and time again in India. One of the key principles in the execution of successful alliances is the structured methodology of  working together with the partner after having done a proper due diligence in the selection process ( Hero's long standing alliance with Honda till recently or that of Caradigm between Microsoft and GE or Dow Corning,etc ) The second one is the ability to be both humble and accommodating wrt the position of the partner and,above all,  being respectful and not being driven by the need to  dominate the relationship. It is perfectly fine if striking alliances and ensuring its success by these principles is not in the DNA of the main protagonist / party ( celebrated examples are that of Wipro and its repeated failures with JVs with British Telecom, Acer,KPN ; TVS with Suzuki ; Godrej with GE, Pillsbury,P&G  etc)....in such cases, the strategy  to  go alone is perfectly legitimate and feasible. The worst possible situation, however, is one where an alliance is stitched up for the immediate goal of electoral arithmetic but with all the pitfalls  mentioned above. NDA's situation with Shiv Sena, MIM, Manjhi's party is similar and would appear to be headed for serious trouble.

4) Positive Campaigns and Political Narrative : Swami Vivekananda and all other spiritual masters teach us to focus on the positives and ignore the negativity which inevitably surrounds us in day to day life. The BJP and the RSS are largely Hindu dominated organisations and its leaders are devout followers of many such exalted masters. Why then was the NDA campaign so negative is a question I could not answer in all honesty. In contrast, Nitish Kumar handled the negativity with dignity and positive pronouncements and largely refrained from hurling personal attacks. In my opinion this made a huge difference to the outcome too especially amongst the women and young, aspirational middle class.

Where and how the political  narrative and the hugely positive developmental agenda of PM Modi during the 2014 elections, and thereafter, got transformed to "cow, caste,communalism and intolerance" is something which the NDA needs to introspect upon... and more importantly correct soon. 

5) Team Building and Corporate Culture : Management gurus lay a lot of stress on culture and discipline to keep the flock together and march towards a common goal. In fact, from my experience across various large organisations, building high performance teams is perhaps the most important leadership role the CEO, and other CXOs, are expected to discharge in their multitude of responsibilities.  In this regard the BJP has failed miserably and the leadership has come out as hapless bystanders whilst the loose cannons went berserk with hate speeches and personal, vilified attacks. This polarising rhetoric did polarise....but in the reverse direction ! Culture building maybe a far cry in Indian politics but a strong leadership response to ensure restraint and balance in public life is a must.

High performance teams are built on a culture of inclusiveness, humility and demonstrating mutual respect.Team buliding should have been easy for the BJP as it has a plethora of capable leaders like many CMs in various states. However, they all seem to have faded somewhere in the background. This phenomena does not augur well and reflects a larger trend which reflected in the marginalisation of the local leadership in Bihar too. Individual stars are important....but it is the team performance which finally matters. In the context of promoting one amongst two equally good leaders I always have held that we all play for the team and not under the captain : a lesson I learnt early in life from one of India's business icons I had worked closely in my formative years. Team play was clearly missing in the NDA's DNA  in these elections.

As Henry Ford said years ago : "Coming together is a beginning; keeping together is progress; working together is success". Having successfully gone thru the first stage, the present leadership may find this reminder useful whilst navigating thru the next two phases.

6) Customer centric performance matters : do not take the customer for granted : One of my primordial learnings in elementary school was a phrase repeated by my grandfather : a very wise man from a lost generation. He used to say : You can fool all people for some time,  some people for all times but not all people for all times. Kaizen, customer satisfaction, TQM, etc ...buzz words of our generation....were built  primarily from this tenet : do not mess around with the customer, know his requirements well and build products around to satisfy his needs consistently. Those who did not keep a pulse on customer preferences perished even though they were market leaders globally....Kodak, Digital, Polaroid,General Foods,TWA, etc. BJP would do well to remember this even if it deals with a largely illiterate populace....illiteracy does not translate to gullibility and a population willing to be taken for a ride. Days of Garibi Hatao,etc., have long gone. Performance counts...as does keeping promises. A key pointer is that all NDA contenders (from constituencies of central ministers from Bihar whose performance has been dismal so far)  lost the elections.

7) Effective Communication : In business, communicating the achievements is far more effective than dwelling on the weaknesses of others though in politics some of it is necessary. The various positive changes brought about in the last 18 months by the Government and the intricate roadmap to change the way India functions would have made a compelling story if presented as  an integrated whole. People need to understand the big picture and the magnitude of what is being attempted even though not much may have been completed so far. This communication gap,however, ceded the space for the opposition       ( read : competition ) to prey with  misinformation campaigns, half truths and effectively change the narrative based on few sad, but stray, instances like Dadri, murder of Dalit children, etc.  A communications disaster !

Concluding Thoughts :  Bill Gates once said : "Success is a lousy teacher. It seduces smart people into thinking they can't lose."

I have never seen any leader garner the magnitude of support which PM Modi has been able to get from the country as a whole ( the only parallel I can think of in my time would be that for Mrs Indira Gandhi in 1971 post the Bangladesh war).....almost all of it was rooted in the mess the country had plummeted to under UPA II and the promise of good governance and development which Modi held out. The political class has led India down consistently over the last few decades.... for the country's sake I sincerely hope that PM Modi will be different.

To be honest, the fact that people trust you gives you a lot of power over people. Having another person's trust is more powerful than all other management techniques put together. PM Modi still has this most precious,but naturally decaying, resource and  he must use it wisely and decisively in the interest of the nation.

Abraham Lincoln's famous saying ring fortuitously in this context :

• America will never be destroyed from the outside. If we falter and lose our freedoms, it will be because we destroyed ourselves.If once you forfeit the confidence of your fellow-citizens, you can never regain their respect and esteem.

George Bernard Shaw famously said : " Progress is impossible without change, and those who cannot change their minds cannot change anything."

For the sake of the people's trust, I hope the Bihar verdict will precipitate this change.

To PM Modi I repeat Swami Vivekananda's sayings : May He who is the Brahman of the Hindus, the Ahura-Mazda of the Zoroastrians, the Buddha of the Buddhists, the Jehovah of the Jews, the Father in Heaven of the Christians give strength to you to carry out your noble idea.

(PRABAL BASU ROY)