Every decision of government needn’t be a big reform: Anand Mahindra

Anand Mahindra can’t wait to get back home from the US because all the action is happening in India with a new, stable government led by Narendra Modi in place. Hours after chairing a board meeting of Mahindra & Mahindra at midnight US time, the company’s chairman and MD spoke on Saturday to Satish John at length from Boston on his hopes and aspirations for the country. The new administration has begun well and a lot more is expected from it, he said. Excerpts:

On Modi government’s 10-point agenda.

I think it is almost brilliant to put at the head of the list the fact that bureaucrats should be encouraged to take decisions without fear. In a sense he’s gone to the heart of the problem of the paralysis. The Indian government is extraordinarily large and it is difficult to try and believe that one leader can make all the change. This is a federal system. In a large bureaucracy you cannot exercise the transformation of any situation without coopting bureaucracy.

So empowerment becomes important. It’s a good sign. If you remember, one of the major apprehensions about Modi was an autocratic style of functioning. By putting right at the top of the agenda the empowerment of the bureaucracy I think one has to appreciate and admit that it is definitely not the act of an autocrat.

On disbanding ministerial groups.

Without making much heavy weather of it, he’s been a case study for business schools on how to exercise leadership and have an impact from day one in the new job. He’s setting a clear agenda and is making a clear promise of making a measurement of progress made against that clear agenda. For example, making an agenda for 100 days will make it clear what the matrix would be for measuring success of that agenda. It is important that every day some incremental progress is made towards that agenda and that progress is communicated transparently. He has got his team ready, which is a focused team. To me, every decision needn’t be a big-bang reform but a signal of proactive decision-making and removal of red tape and bureaucracy. And a promise of even speedier decision-making in the future.