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Forget peace if you are a top honcho in India
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Forget peace if you are a top honcho in India
Forget about it...
Since Chauhan heads one of Juniper`s fastest growing markets, his inputs are essential at any important meeting at the headquarters. So if Chauhan isn`t taking conference calls at the crack of dawn, he`s to be found on a redeye flight from Bangalore to Santa Clara for a face-to-face meeting.
It`s not just the conference calls across time zones and constant travel, there`s also the barrage of instant messaging that`s beaming on iphones across continents, which require immediate attention. An estimated hundred such messages from Juniper`s offices in the U.S., Europe, Hong Kong and Singapore each day is received by Chauhan. And though his colleagues are considerate about not phoning him in the middle of the night, they do call as late as 10 pm and if it`s an intense discussion, unwinding and getting to sleep isn`t easy afterward. "I end up catching up on my sleep during weekends," says Chauhan, "which my family doesn`t appreciate, since that`s supposed to be their time. With the exponential growth of business in India, stress levels have gone definitely up," rues Chauhan, who travels 20 days a month. And thanks to the irregular and usually heavy eating that travel entails, he`s been putting on weight.
Chauhan`s is not an isolated case, there are other top executives who are also following the same kind of lifestyle. Indeed, the corner room job has become more stressful than ever before. More recently, the stroke and death of Ranjan Das, the Managing Director of SAP India, has thrown open more questions than answers. Are Indian CEOs more stress-prone? Is the work-life imbalance of our top honchos so stark that it has now started taking lives? Do our CEOs find it hard to cope in a globalized set-up? Tough questions call for tough answers.
Gone are the days when a multinational company`s (MNC) CEO`s job was akin to Laatsahebs in the days of the Raj. The MNC CEO tribe is a particularly harried lot today; one such CEO sums it up succinctly, "I start the day earlier and finish the day later."
Longer work hours notwithstanding, incessant travel, endless conference calls across time zones, reporting to various bosses due to matrix structures, problematic clients, and a constantly buzzing BlackBerry play havoc with the CEOs` work-life balance. Lately, the intense focus on the still growing India operations as developed markets stagnate, has added a new dimension to the already high stress levels of Indian CEOs in MNCs.
Meanwhile, CEOs of India`s promoter-led firms have their own set of problems. A host of hyper-growth issues, diversification initiatives, combined with aggressive acquisition sprees are taking a toll on them too. Off the record, they say that handling the promoter is the biggest tension in Indian groups because the promoter too is struggling to evolve with the professional managers, and policies change constantly. "Indian CEOs want to please everybody and be at the centre of all action. That leads to a lot of stress," says the top honcho of a promoter-driven IT firm.
All these concerns are against the backdrop of the considerable stress and strain of the daily travel across Indian cities. "The lack of daily efficiencies in India contribute to failure and result in stress," says Pramod Bhasin, President and CEO of Genpact. "For example, we have triple power backup in our Gurgaon office and that can be really stressful. Then there is absenteeism and an unreliable workforce that really puzzles me when I contrast it with the West."
The tough business environment notwithstanding, some tough decisions also have an emotional backlash that may sometimes be difficult to handle. While some CEOs find their way with the help of family, friends and the occasional corporate coach, some end up requiring professional help.
Source:
http://www.siliconindia.com/shownews/Forget_peace_if_you_are_a_top_honcho_in_Ind
