THE MANY HUES OF LEADERSHIP

PHOTOS BY SUBHOJIT PAUL
THE MANY HUES
OF LEADERSHIP
How Anasuya Gupta transformed CICO Group, an 80-year-old construction
chemicals company against formidable challenges—little business experience,
a huge personal loss and tangible scepticism from those around her
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looking back
ANA SUYA GUPTA //
DOSSIER
NAME:
CICO Group
WHAT:
CICO offers comprehensive
range of end-to-end
permanent solutions for
industrial, architectural and
general construction and
provide expert systems to
the repair and rehabilitation
industry.
FAMILY:
Gupta is seen here with
her son and daughter
T
he article got us
thinking: all things
remaining the same—
customers, products,
employees—does a
company change when the gender
of its C-suite does? Especially, when
there’s more Venus, for example. To
answer that, we couldn’t have hoped
for a better story to tell than that of
Anasuya Gupta, managing director
and chairperson, CICO Group, a
Delhi-headquartered construction
chemicals company. In March 2008,
Gupta had to take over the company
after her third-generation entrepreneur husband Amit Gupta passed
away. Needless to say, it was an
incredibly difficult time for Gupta—
faced as she was with personal loss,
two young children grieving their
father and an established business
that was jittery about its future.
Yet, Gupta, essentially a homemaker
till then, has done much more than
just douse those fears. In the past five
years, that she has led the company, it
has been on a consistent upswing—
both in terms of business growth and
operational efficiency—thanks to the
many qualities Buchanan mentions in
her story about good leadership; qualities that Gupta seems to have in heaps.
In fact, Gupta caught my attention
precisely because she demonstrated
a key qualityBuchananmentions—
vulnerability—with such ease at
the Dell Women’s Entrepreneur
Network in Istanbul where I
happened to meet her in early June.
Instead of first telling me about the
huge business impact she’s had
in the past five years (including
doubling the company’s turnover,
and completely buying back its
private equity investors’ share), she
spoke candidly about how she had
personally navigated the ropes of
business, including coaching her
male colleagues on why they couldn’t
use the ladies bathroom! Hers is
an interesting journey on many
accounts, and a worthy case study of
transformative leadership. Read on
“I believe
women are
detail-oriented;
sometimes,
to the point of
micro-managing. In contrast,
my husband’s
policy was—
Let go. Let be. I
have an image
of what office
should look like.
—Anasuya Gupta
to see the changes she brought on at
CICO Group, and how:
Professionalism Discipline
I believe women are detail-oriented;
sometimes, to the point of micro-managing. I’m like that too. In contrast,
my husband’s policy was “Let Go. Let
Be.” I have a certain image of what the
office should look like, and that our
employees should be well presented.
I once even told one of our male
employee to shave. In fact, I brought
it up at a town hall meeting, saying
untended facial hair was not acceptable. Each employee is an ambassador
of the company, and each one must
look professional. My daughter is constantly mortified that I say these things
but it’s important to articulate, I think.
Also, when I joined the business, I
made a decision to make a few people
redundant because I knew they would
be roadbloacks in the journey ahead,
including a few people who were very
close to my husband. My husband
never let go of people—ever. People
just chugged along, sometimes without
adding to their skills, or improving
themselves. I view it differently. We
have to demonstrate we are a highpotential company. So, when you condone under-performance, you’re setting
the wrong culture. What’s the incentive
for somebody to be an outstanding performer when even mediocre performers get the same benefits? It was important to be meritocratic and professional.
We’ve tried to attract some really good
talent, and bring in new people. In the
past five years, we’ve also moved from
Tally to ERP. We created a proper HR
function. The biggest pat on my back
really was when CICO won the Best
Professionally Managed Organisation in our category at the 5th CIDC
Vishwakarma Award 2013. I didn’t go
up to the podium to receive the award
though. I sent my AVP because I said
if we’re getting an award for being a
professionally managed company, a
professional should go up to get it. This
gentleman was so embarrassed. But
I told him I was applauding from the
audience, and he had to go up. I wanted
to send a message to the company that
we are a professional organisation, and
that is something we deeply value.
Collaboration & Teamwork
One of the first things I noticed when
I came in was that people didn’t
work in teams at all. They worked
in silos, and decisions were taken
individually. The left hand didn’t
know what the right one was doing.
There would be instances where we
couldn’t execute efficiently on orders
because the chemical needed wasn’t
available in the country. I understood
what was wrong when I began asking
basic questions—had the sales team
spoken to the production people
before taking the order, or why didn’t
we get a particular business after
qualifying for its tender specifications?
Had anybody talked to sales to find
out? More often than not, the answer
would be no. I began to fix that. Today,
we work in teams. For example, we
have a pricing committee now unlike
before where only one person would
decide the price but when we went
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looking back
\\ ANA SUYA GUPTA
out into the market, we couldn’t sell
because that price was too high. Yet,
it was impossible to get the head of
pricing to be flexible. Coming down
on price was a big no-no. Now, the
pricing committee has three people;
and one person from sales has to be
there for meetings so we get a sense
of the market. It’s important to get all
viewpoints, and it’s so easy to do that
in the era of BBM and WhatsApp. It
takes two seconds to ask—can we go
up 50 paise, or come down a rupee?
Forget functional teams or managers, even I don’t take decisions singlehandedly. I may agree to disagree. And,
sometimes I might push a decision
through. But, I listen to all viewpoints,
and then take a decision. My husband
had the advantage of the company
being on his fingertips and he didn’t
need to reach out as much for advice.
I’ve managed so far only because I
asked a lot of questions. A key advan-
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SNIPPET
Waterproofers
Water Sealers
Concrete Admixtures Construction
Aids Protective
Coating
tage of being a woman is that we have
the strength to say, “I don’t know.” A
lot of men don’t do that. I find it very
easy in meetings to say—can I get a
minute to call my office and find out,
or that I’ll come back with the details
later. I owe this ability to my B.Ed.
education. During that training many
years earlier, I was taught that if you go
into class, and a child asks a question,
don’t camouflage if you don’t know.
Don’t fudge an answer. Tell them you’ll
find out and let them know. That’s
been a big lesson in my life. In any
case, nobody knows everything; we’re
all learning all the time.
To me, this honest give and take of
views and ideas is so critical a need for
running a business that I’ve ordered
round tables instead of the rectangular
tables we have in our conference
rooms. In a circle, you feel everybody’s
voice is equal, as it should be.
Otherwise, the notion of the “head of
the table” creates a wrong impression
and builds unnecessary hierarchies.
Ambitious Buy-Back
Fortunately, things have changed
a lot in the past few years. When I
took over in March 2008, we had a
turnover of `38 crore. We have nearly
doubled that and closed FY2013 with
`65 crore. Also, we have managed to
buy back the 45.33 per cent share that
private equity investor Actis had in our
company. They had come on board as
investors in May 2000. Buying back
our share was one of the biggest challenges I’d set for myself when I joined.
I would keep telling our employees
that I want this to be your company
entirely, and we must meet that
objective together. So, we did our first
buy back of 22.67 per cent in May
2010, and followed that up a year later
with 11.33 per cent in May 2011. Our
final buy back of the remaining 11.33
looking back
ANA SUYA GUPTA //
“There’s a young girl
in my office—28 years
old who is part of the
sales force team. She
uses a moped, and has
done a tremendous
sales job. I thought if we
could get a few more
women like her, the
impact on the organisation would be huge”
—Anasuya Gupta
per cent happened in August 2012. I
was certain as soon as I joined that I
didn’t want to be questioned about the
way I wanted to grow the business,
or having to report to our investors.
I wanted the company to reflect our
voice, to be a vehicle for our ambitions.
Today, our 200 people are located
across five manufacturing units in
Gurgaon, Haridwar, Kolkata, Chennai
and Kasna. This isn’t an industry
dominated by women.
I’m often walking into conference
rooms and seminar halls full of men.
The DWEN conference has been such
a rarity—I’ve never seen so many
business women together!
Diversity & Sensitivity
I think the men have adapted very
well to the changes that have taken
place in our workplace. There is
definitely more respect for women.
This is a brick and mortar company.
SNIPPET
Some of CICO's
customers are
Delhi Metro, Koldam Nathpa Jhakri
Power Corporation
I remember when I came in, I would
see people call out to even women
with a casual “aye”. I made it clear in
an open forum that this was not okay
to do. There’s no abusive language
anymore. Because women weren’t in
leadership positions in CICO before,
people didn’t have to watch their
actions as much. A more civilised,
sensitised workplace is important to
me. But, to be honest, I’m not always
conscious about being a woman first,
and then an MD. The gender ratio
has improved at CICO since I have
joined. I’ve made efforts to do that
but it’s been difficult. I got in a lot of
women at first but I have to confess I
got tired. So many women I brought
in disappointed me; they didn’t seem
to have their priorities right. So, I
decided, “Ok, let the men come in.”
My intentions were good but I got
disheartened. So, I gave up for a
while. Now, I’ve restarted the process
because when women are focused,
their results are much better. For
example, there’s this young girl in
my office—28 years old who is part of
the sales force team. She’s from West
Bengal, and is posted in Gujarat right
now. She uses a moped, and has
done a tremendous sales job. She’s
been a great inspiration. I thought if
we could get a few more women like
her, the impact on the organisation
would be huge. So, now, I’ve started
looking at positions where I think
women can really be very successful.
See, you can’t completely negate or
deny the social context. There are
some roles, areas, or factories where
I don’t think sending women would
be wise. This time, I’m not going to
give up easily. It might not work out
but I don’t want to have regrets that
I didn’t try. As Sheryl Sandberg says,
“Don’t leave before you leave.”
—As told to Ira Swasti
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