Dr. T. V. Rao is currently the Chairman of TVRLS based in Bangalore. A former professor and board member at Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad (IIMA), Dr. Rao is the Founder and First President of National Human Resources Development Network and has been at the forefront of the HRD movement in the country. He served as a Professor at the IIMA from 1973 to 1994 and has been an Adjunct Professor since 1994.
Dr. Rao has also served as Visiting Faculty at the Indian School of Business, Hyderabad, and as HRD Advisor to the Reserve Bank of India. With a PhD in Organisational Behaviour from Sardar Patel University, he has authored over 60 books on topics such as OD, HRD and 360 Degree Feedback. He has worked as a consultant for UNESCO, FAO, USAID, Commonwealth Secretariat and other global organisations. The HRM had a conversation with Rao on various spectrums of Human Resources Development. Excerpts:
Q. What does effective human resource management mean for the overall growth of companies/organisations?
A. Getting right people to man various roles in the organisation, inducting them with the values and culture, reminding them periodically about the purpose and mission of the organisation and engaging them with commitment and building the brand of the organisation in the minds of employees as well as various stake holders, particularly the customers and other beneficiaries of services. Focus on creating health and happiness among all stakeholders by being sensitive to employees and their needs and aspirations. Continuous dialogue to get them to appreciate the policies and practices of the organisation will help. HRM includes Human Resources Development (HRD) which means ensuring continuous development of people as individuals, roles, dyad, teams and organisation as a whole with agility and resilience.
Q. As a professor of the psychology, what exactly the psychology of staffs and management could make effective bonding between them?
A. Primarily, mutual care and respect. Often this requires continuous communication and dialogue. Building trust by not making commitments that can’t be honoured and keeping up all the commitments made. Not looking at people as statistics and treating them as human beings with feelings, aspirations and energy that makes things happen.
Q. What should be the priority of CHROs/HR leaders in shaping the congenial HR culture, working atmosphere in companies and organisations?
A. An ability to balance short-terms goals and targets with long-term impact desired by the organisation, the society and country. A strong business sense with a clear understanding that all businesses are meant to serve people and profits are only one of the significant indicators of organisational and HR success. Pride in the organisation and recognition that human and intellectual capital building often cannot be measured fully by short-term profits and money. Continuously impressing the top management including the board of the organisation about the role of values and culture in building lasting organisations. CHROS should periodically get their HR evaluated in terms of systems, capabilities, styles, values and culture and their appropriateness in achieving organisational goals and purposes. Most CHROs are shy of or insecure to get their HR systems and processes audited by experts as a result they don’t get the best out of their people.
Q. In the age of digitalisation and Artificial Intelligence, how should human resources prepare themselves and how should companies/organisations debunk technological myths?
A. Artificial Intelligence or AI is a tool and could be a very useful tool as it combines and stores information accumulated from several brains across time, departments, sections and geographies. If right information is not generated and stored it could lead to disastrous consequences. HR has a long way to go even in developing formats for generating and storing such information on people. People science is constantly changing as people are intelligent and can beat any system including those that they have created. For example, after almost 50 years of work in competency mapping and assessment we still do not have a universally acceptable set of competencies that contribute to success in all organisations at all time to come. So, we should be humble enough to accept the limitations of technology and AI in providing solutions to all our problems. AI can be used very effectively in medical and other fields but in people management it could be misleading as humans are more intelligent than computers and machines. The responsibility of HR is to create profiles of people and their experiences, problems and solutions, ideas and implementation and many such variables. More and more research and continuous research and up-gradation of knowledge of human behaviour are the only answer. Unfortunately, most HR is weak in research and fast in using half-baked knowledge. In such situations AI could be misleading. Science can help us debunk the negative effects of AI and research builds science.
Q. What are the predominant factors that build readiness of companies to adopt technology-based and future-focused interactive/learning practices?
A. Exposure to global practices and developments in new and interactive learning. Increased use of online and virtual and self-monitored learning in organisations and in the education system. Using the advantages of technology to enhance human interaction-based learning rather than using virtual learning as substitute to all learning. Human interaction-based learning should not be totally replaced with virtual or technology substituted learning. On-line education is a great aid for more innovations in learning but cannot be a substitute for human interactive learning.
Q. In your opinion, what types of HR policies and strategies can play a crucial role for shaping a company’s sustainability and growth?
A. All policies that are based on a positive view of human being can impact sustainable growth. Policies that reflect respect for people, empathy, and compassion and policies that have built in scope for dialogue and discussion are essential. Policies that promote openness or self-expression of views and opinions, trust, collaboration, that reinforce initiative and proaction, policies that promote trust, an accountability, authenticity and experimentation. In short what we called OCTAPACE and recently re-coined as POCTAPLACED (policies that promote purpose, openness, collaboration, trust, authenticity, proaction, learning, confrontation, experimentation, and discipline).
Q. How should leaders prepare themselves to make them relevant all time?
A. By learning all the time and from various sources including people, all stakeholders, strangers, reading books, attending programmes and learning from failures and successes of self and others. They need to be humble and reflective. They should invest in themselves and undertake periodic self-renewal exercises. They also should share their points of view fearlessly and without creating fear in leaners. As observed by Noel Tichy, great leaders are great teachers and everyone who a has a point of view can turn out to be a leader by sharing his/her point of view and listening to other person’s points of view.
Q. Do you think leaders are born or made and how?
A. Leaders make themselves as leaders by their own effort, talent and circumstances. They are not born. Some families, schools, colleges, and even organisations create circumstances for their children, students and employees respectively to bring out the best talent in them and make leadership impact. I believe everyone has the talent to be a leader. Only a few people bring out the hidden talent in them and make impact on others. Hard work, perseverance, focus, initiative, experimentation combined with vision and a little of luck play a role in making leaders.
Q. What are the evolving trends you’ve noticed in leadership and management?
A. The most important trend is that leadership is a higher form of management. Institution building is even a higher form of leadership. My research on effective people or effective leaders has brought out certain characteristics. These include: They endeavour to discover inner talent and put to use for serving others. They are more self-aware. They stretch their talent by testing themselves in new situations and discover undiscovered talent. They are value driven, compassionate: EMPATHETIC, Live with purpose and infect others with passion and larger goals, Reach out too many and build Institutions. They are integrating personalities and not divisive people. I have given many characteristics of effective doctors, teachers, social workers, educational entrepreneurs, civil servants, scientists and others in my book on Effective People (Penguin Randomhouse, India, 2015 and 2024). In an earlier book on Managers who make a difference (IIMA Books) I have described eight qualities of mangers to grow as achievers, visionaries and missionaries. Making a difference in the lives of others is the new agenda for all managers, leaders and effective people.
Q. It is said that the key to successful HR lies in investing in continuous learning and skilling opportunities to ensure that employees remain adaptable to evolving industry trends and technologies. Could you please share your experience in the context of India and beyond?
A. We recently made case studies of 30 highly respected leaders in India. Continuous learning and upgrading skills and remaining contemporary came out as very significant qualities they shared. As HR managers they were baptised in handling industrial relations. Working and managing employee relations in early part of your career provides a great ground for developing leadership qualities. They were business driven people with strategic thinking and analytical skills. They have demonstrated professional excellence and also demonstrated good number of people skills. They participated in building the profession, took responsibilities and worked for larger causes. This is well documented in the book ‘Leaders in the Making’ by Arvind Agrawal and T. V. Rao (Penguin Random house, India). Those interested may get a lot more details in our book.
Q. Why are learning and development, and skilling human resources in the least priority of companies and organisations?
A. I don’t agree that it is given least priority. It is not given high priority in those organisations where there is already an abundance of leadership talent. Most organisations don’t fall into this category. There is always talent shortage and organisations can’t afford to neglect continuous learning and development. However, I do agree that investments in developing people could be far higher in South Asian countries.
Q. As talent drain is rampant in Nepal how can they be retained for the organisation/company’s growth?
A. Certain amount of talent migration is good for a country provided the country has a knack of attracting them back as more skilled and capable persons. To attract them back, countries like Nepal should invest more on creating infrastructure and positive culture that encourages innovation for world-class organisations to take birth and evolve. I am not an expert on Nepal and I’m sure you will have a lot of in-country thought on ways of attracting and retaining talent in your country.
Q. How can companies foster a strong work culture and ethical practices? What responsibilities do employers and leaders have in creating positive and responsible work environments?
A. Creating a right work culture and work ethic is always a challenge in technology driven world where the habits of young minds are fast changing. Now a days by the age of four every one walks with the world in his/her hand and knows how to play with it on phone. We need to recognise the talent of the new generation brought to the forefront by technological developments. We are yet to figure out how to grow with the speed to appreciate and use the new generation of youth. We need a sea change in the mindset of older generation. We need to continue to create conditions for people to explore and discover their talent and apply the same to benefit the society. Leadership lessons should be taught from early childhood onwards. Success stories should be created, documented and shared with the younger generation. Young children are capable of making video, create films and writing books. There is a new creative mind out there. Should we be afraid of them and kill their creativity or should we encourage them and learn from them. Parents should learn from their children and teachers from their students and seniors should learn from their junior. Our work culture needs to change to respect talent than merely age. We need continuous self-renewal of seniors at work.
Q. Would you like to add anything more for our readers?
A. My best wishes for building a great nation. A great nation is built by great people. People can be made great by investing in them and giving them scope to innovate, experiment and help each other. There is a lot to learn from each other in the countries that fall in the neighbourhood of Nepal.
