Stay agile by empowering employees to drive innovation and change: panellists

INNOVATION has proven to be the best antidote in fighting unpleasant surprises, said Narayana Murthy, the founder of Indian software services exporter Infosys, at a conference on Thursday (Oct 5).

Speaking at the inaugural Asia Future Summit, he stressed that continual innovation is the best medicine. “I believe that the responsibility to usher in innovation cannot be limited to any one function or a set of specialists in the company,” he said.

Murthy was speaking during a session on the second and final day of the conference that was jointly hosted by The Business Times (BT), The Straits Times and Lianhe Zaobao. OCBC is the presenting sponsor of Asia Future Summit 2023. The event is also supported by GuocoLand and Kingsford Group.

Titled Staying Nimble amid Economic Uncertainties, the panel also featured French multinational company Schneider Electric’s chairman Jean-Pascal Tricoire and was moderated by BT editor Chen Huifen.

Leaders’ role to empower

Murthy said that it is the role of organisations’ leaders to prepare their employees to handle change.

“I would say that the leaders of today must simply accept that change is here to stay ... and prepare their colleagues to welcome their ideas, to learn to (use) those ideas to their advantage, and also to give up those ideas if they see that they aren’t going to be very useful,” he said.

Echoing those sentiments, Tricoire said he believes the foundation for any society or company lies in its people.

“The only way to be agile... is how you empower your people – wherever in the world – so that it is, every day, their company,” he said. “Everybody wants to be a giant. For me, the only thing is how you make your people empowered, responsible, accountable, and really motivated because they can make an impact.”

Words of advice for leaders

In response to a question posed by an audience member asking for advice for chief executive officers building companies for the long term, Murthy reiterated his predictability, sustainability, profitability, and de-risking (PSPD) model that he created 30 years ago.

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The model looks at the prediction of revenues, the sustainability of the aforementioned predictions, the profitability of such realised revenues, and lastly, identifying and mitigating risks.

However, while the parameters, geopolitical risks, technological risks, and the growth of regions may have changed, the model has not.

The PSPD model was true 30 years ago, and still holds true for the future, Murthy said. “It is absolutely essential for every CEO to worry about PSPD,” he added.

While Tricoire maintained that he has completely given up on predictability because he “didn’t see Covid-19 (and) Russia”, he agreed that companies must be able to adapt to reality all the time.

“The things which for me are really key when you steer a company these days is you (can) never spend enough time on a laser-focused strategy… (and) you (can) never spend enough time in choosing the people around you,” he said.

A leader can go on about values, but at the end of the day, they are a sum of every individual in the company, he added.

“When you want to bring value to your customers, it’s really important you look in depth (and) choose people who are not only all great people, but also people who are very knowledgeable about what they do and passionate about what they do.”