Wait & Watch...Is it a Strategy ?

It has been 40 years since the Harvard economist John Kenneth Galbraith published his work "The Age of Uncertainty". In the 40 years since 1977 uncertainty has come to confront each one of us every day and in every aspect of our lives.

When we look back at the 1970s the times appear more certain and stabler than they do now. While international politics has always been milling, the uncertainty levels did not run so deep in the society. The quantum and speed of change is more profound now. While the VUCA (Volatility, Uncertainty, Complexity and Ambiguity) World is a much cliched catchphrase, its impact on society, business and us is more and more evident. In navigating through such times the capability and competence of the leaders and their strategies make all the difference between survival, growth and demise. The key deliverable of leaders is leadership and strategy. While across the world the leaders seem to be taking decisions, delivering strategies and implementing them while navigating through the same turbulent waters as anywhere else, in India one very often comes across leaders pursuing perpetually the strategy of "Whimper, Wait & Watch" adding to the despair all around.

During such times when all our understanding, training and decision making seems to go for a toss, we see our "leaders" hiding behind the refrain of "Let's Wait & Watch". The strategy of procrastination now plagues the entire country and corporate leaders are in an eternal wait & watch mode ! Waiting for the outcome of the UP elections, waiting for the US Presidential election, the next RBI directive, the union budget, the next Man ki Baat, the competitors next move…

The Wait & Watch strategy is the best hiding place for the shirker. It is the safe house for an incompetent leadership. Leadership is about seeing patterns among chaos, opportunities in despair and light at the end of the tunnel. The Leader cannot Whimper Wait & Watch – the leader has to Watch and Move !

The consequences of this Wait & Watch strategy are disastrous for an emerging economy grappling with an ever changing global dynamics. As the world has become a smaller place thanks to the internet, so has it become highly connected and reactive. Opportunities develop in one day and threats loom the next. What looks viable today looks impossible tomorrow – Yet the show must go on and it does go on. The winners are not who are in a perpetual “Wait and Watch” mode but those who are Imagining, Reinventing and Relaunching – products, practices and priorities. The winners are the Leaders who are leading their companies and people into certain times sure-footedly, creating and developing scenarios and possibilities as they go.

India and her corporates will have to practice austerity and decouple themselves from the forces of economy beyond their control and influence. They have to assume a meditative state and focus on their vision rather than focusing on survival. The state has to let the corporate alone undisturbed for undertaking this effort. Only a concerted effort where the focus is on alignment will bring about the stability so much required for a growing economy. The emerging economies despite their huge nos. are still immature. It will take many years of institutionalised decision making and a matching psyche for such economies to steer successfully clear from the brinkmanship they find themselves in.

Rather than being a fallen leaf getting blown away mercilessly by every passing whiff, the country has to get surefooted. The policy makers have to get together and crystallize an agenda. In hindsight it seems the five year plans and the adherence to those plans definitely served the purpose of keeping the country economically stable and setting the stage for developing a structure. Perhaps the same cage which protected also held back the flight but at least the wings could grow. Now the protective cage is gone and the wings are ready to take flight but the cat is around ! Certainly Wait & Watch will not work…the Wings have to take flight NOW !

The refrain of the corporate leaders “To Wait & Watch” hides a degree of managerial mediocrity. The World belongs to those who decide, act and get watched and not the other way round. India and its corporate leaders have to wake up now and act…they have waited and watched enough. This is the time to be brave. India cannot be held hostage to their mediocrity any more. Lets PLAN, DO & ACT NOW !