Leading in Turbulent Times

Summary

This 2003 Forum of Free Enterprise booklet bundles two short pieces by Azim Premji, Chairman of Wipro Corporation: the Bhogilal Leherchand Memorial Lecture he delivered in Mumbai on 2 December 2002 under the title “Leading in Turbulent Times,” and his earlier convocation address at IIT Chennai of 27 July 2001, reprinted as “Opportunities and Challenges.” Together they sit inside FFE’s classical-liberal pamphleteering tradition not as a policy intervention but as a corporate leader’s argument that private enterprise must deserve, through its own internal culture, the latitude that liberals seek to defend for it.

The title essay reads the early-2000s slump — globalisation shock, recession, and the wave of US corporate scams of which Enron is the named case — and argues that the gravest casualty has been investor trust, not balance-sheet value. Premji distils four operational lessons from the downturn (re-focus on Customer Value, invest strategically while assets and talent are cheap, transform and trim the organisation, and discipline costs even in boom years), but his main move is cultural rather than tactical: laws and board reforms cannot by themselves guarantee ethical behaviour, so strong corporate governance must rest on shared Values consistently practised by leaders. He cites a Brookings estimate that the scandals had cost US GDP $38 billion in their first year and Paul Krugman’s view that their damage to the US economy exceeds that of 11 September 2001.

“Opportunities and Challenges” turns from incumbent CEOs to entering engineers. Premji offers ten lessons drawn from three-and-a-half decades at Wipro: dare to dream; define what you stand for; never lose your zest and curiosity (he notes that the world’s codified knowledge base, doubling every thirty years in the early twentieth century and every seven years by the 1970s, is projected to double every eleven hours by 2010); strive for global-grade excellence; build self-confidence; learn to work in cross-cultural teams; develop a rounded, synthesising personality; take care of yourself; cultivate a broader social vision; and persevere. The social-vision lesson is where he positions the Azim Premji Foundation’s pledge to enrol over a million out-of-school children as the obligation that knowledge-economy wealth carries.

The booklet is framed by the Forum’s house furniture — an A. D. Shroff dedication on the inside cover (“Free Enterprise was born with man and shall survive as long as man survives”), an Introduction by FFE President Minoo R. Shroff, a closing Eugene Black quote that “people must come to accept private enterprise not as a necessary evil, but as an affirmative good,” and the standard FFE membership page — so the reader is meant to leave with the Values-based defence of free enterprise as the takeaway, not only the management advice.

Key points

• The booklet bundles two single-author addresses by Azim Premji: the 2002 Bhogilal Leherchand Memorial Lecture (“Leading in Turbulent Times”) and the 2001 IIT Chennai convocation address (“Opportunities and Challenges”).

• The title lecture reads the post-globalisation, recession, and US-corporate-scandal landscape as a stress test of business leadership and identifies four operational lessons from the downturn — re-focus on Customer Value, invest strategically, transform the organisation, and discipline costs even in good times.

• Premji’s central argument is cultural rather than regulatory: laws and board structures alone cannot guarantee ethical behaviour, so corporate governance must be anchored in shared Values practised consistently by leaders.

• He invokes a Brookings estimate that the US corporate scandals cost $38 billion (0.36% of GDP) in their first year and Paul Krugman’s view that the damage exceeds that of September 11, 2001.

• The second piece sets out ten lessons for young engineers: dare to dream, define what you stand for, sustain curiosity, strive for global-grade excellence, build self-confidence, work in cross-cultural teams, develop a rounded personality, take care of yourself, hold a broader social vision, and persevere.

• The Azim Premji Foundation’s pledge to enrol over a million out-of-school children is foregrounded as the model of knowledge-economy social vision.

• The booklet is bracketed by FFE’s standing apparatus — A. D. Shroff and Eugene Black dedicatory quotes plus an Introduction by Minoo R. Shroff — positioning Premji’s leadership ethic as a buttress for the FFE free-enterprise project.