Executive Shamelessness
So you have a Masters degree or a PhD perhaps. Suddenly you have become God's gift to this world of cretins with Bachelors degree 'workers'. With your Superior intellect or perhaps even by virtue of your birth in a certain fold you have achieved the pinnacle of Education and success is bound to follow.... or be assigned to you. Better still, someone died and made you an Executive! And here you come: looking smart, smelling good and feeling like a number one! Its time to extract your pound of flesh (benefits) now! Woohoo! Lets make a check-list least you forget to ask for something from your Employer:
- Fat Pay check
- Stock Options
- Big Corner Office
- Club memberships
- Holiday Abroad
- Insurance for you and your extended family (dog included)
- Reimburse your personal bills
- Did I miss something? Do add to this list as you see fit!
Operations Versus Sales:
The Indian industry has long stopped rewarding 'mundane' ops folks and focuses on rewarding 'new business' (Sales) folks. These Executives are in charge of 'Growth'. Many a times Growth simply happens as a function of the lower price (Arbitrage between $ and Rupee) the engineers are offered at in India. So little is needed to be done. So these execs spend their time Window dressing sales figures, providing ops metrics to clueless customers or doing SWOT analysis of their customers. I am yet to see any concrete growth come out of these silly efforts. Yet the Executive survives and thrives, often the modus operandi is to "Partner" with the customers and bully the offshore teams who do the actual work. The Myth that in general growth is a function of the Executive has long been propagated and sustained in order to justify higher Exec compensation.
Widening Disparity
Starting annual salary of a bright, out of college engineer is Rupees 300,000 or less in the Indian IT sector. Executive Salaries are typically 10,000,000(35X) as much plus stock options andf other benefits listed above. Perhaps nowhere else in the world is this gap so huge. (e.g. $60K vs $300K in USA works out to 5X). This disparity is further widened by the fact that the Executive makes several paid trips abroad in order to 'ensure' growth or 'accelerate' it all at company expense. (needless to say this expense comes from the sweat of the poor s/w engineers. Stock options further rub salt into the wounds of the poor Engineers.
Advocates of Austerity
There was a COO i knew who would drive around in a SUV's with subsidized diesel which too was reimbursed by the company. He launched the "Green initiative" to save fuel and electricity costs for the company. How Noble! He would urge (in one instance a pregnant woman) to use the stairs instead of the elevators to save money and stay fit. Another austerity advocate drove a Mercedes convertible in India and would fire people at every possible turn in their careers.
Naturally a healthy level of hypocrisy is required to maintain a certain set of Rules of Executives and another (exclusive) set for the Cretins. This has a effect on the mental state of the human being. (Yes Execs are human too) Guilt begins to creep in. Deep down they know they are just as good as everyone else or maybe even worse. In comes CSR(Corporate Social Responsibility). Again it is the execs who lead this initiative and not the Cretins, who feel no guilt as they are the ones being cheated.
The Great Indian Rat Race
I have only one piece of advice for those who are Execs or about to become an Exec in the Indian Industry
"Even if you win you still will be a RAT!."
Do you have an executive Hypocrisy Story to share? Do comment.
Regards
Milind K Thombre
