Employees First Abstract

Employees First, Customers Second

Turning Conventional Management Upside Down

by Vineet Nayar Copyright 2010 Vineet Nayar Summarized by permission of Harvard Business Review Press 200 pages

Focus

Leadership & Management Strategy Sales & Marketing Finance Human Resources IT, Production & Logistics Small Business Economics & Politics Industries Global Business Career & Self-Development Concepts & Trends

Take-Aways

• By 2005, India’s HCL Technologies was stagnating and falling behind its IT rivals. • HCLT’s leaders, including CEO Vineet Nayar, set ambitious new goals to recharge it. • It adopted a new strategy: “Employees First, Customers Second” (EFCS). • EFCS entailed turning organizational focus on the employees in the “value zone”: the place where value is truly created for customers. • To support these employees, HCLT’s leaders relied on small changes (“catalysts”) rather than on grand plans. The firm undertook four stages of change: • First, it embarked on a program called “Mirror Mirror,” a candid self-examination of organizational flaws and how to fix them. • Second, it promoted openness with its staffers to create “trust through transparency.” • Third, it restructured its organization as an inverted pyramid to support employees’ work. • Fourth, it “recast the role of CEO” so that employees and executives could grab hold of the baton for implementing change. • HCLT’s success refutes misconceptions about the strategy of putting employees ahead of customers and shows how that actually benefits customers in the long run.

Rating (10 is best)

Overall Applicability Innovation Style

8

8

7

8

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