Consider this business leader?s next goal. He wants to make HIV/ AIDS disappear from India. This goal is not a mere whim or an effort to be a good samaritan but something that Ashok Alexander has consciously chosen to do. As the director for Avahan?the India AIDS Initiative of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation?s, Alexander belongs to the rare breed of corporate leaders who chose to apply their leadership skills not just for increasing the bottomline and topline for a business, but also for the greater common good.
Alexander believes that one can manage social sector projects on the same lines as one would perhaps handle large-scale transformation programmes for a company. ?The basic principles for both remain the same. One can always apply all business management principles to the social sector as well. One needs to construct processes that work in normal business and that is exactly what is required here as well. One can then use all basics of timely goal achievement, allocation of resources and measuring profits for social work as well,? he says.
Alumni of Delhi?s St Stephen?s college and IIM Ahmedabad, Alexander?s career started with a stint with PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) in HongKong. He joined McKinsey after working with the organisation for six years. The job took him to international postings and exposed him to global work practices. Till date, he has high regard for McKinsey as an institution.
?The real school I went to was McKinsey. It was almost like going to university,? he says. Alexander points out that one of the most important lessons he learnt at the firm was problem solving and how to get along with people. ?That is the key to most management situations,? he adds.
It was during his tenure at the company that he met up with some people from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation in 2003. By now, he had 24 years of experience in the private sector, working in Hong Kong, the United States, and India. He was a senior partner and head of McKinsey?s office in Delhi. He was doing consulting work for the Gates Foundation’s AIDS initiative in India
During the course of consultancy, he got to understand the nature of work and the possible impact of what those people were trying to achieve. Soon one thing led to another and he joined the organisation. ?I was fascinated by these people. They asked me if I would like to work with them. I thought over the offer. It was like nothing I had ever done before. I had already spent 17 years with McKinsey and was ready for the next challenge. I decided to take it on,? he reminisces.
And it did turn out to be a challenge. The nature of work was nothing like Alexander had ever attempted before. One of the key challenges Alexander faced was the difference in the style of functioning of both organisations. Their deliverables were also different in nature. One also met very different type of people in the course of performing one?s job.
Also, the way the social sector executes its plan is very different. ?For instance, if you want to make sure that a model works to bring around the desired change, one runs a pilot in a limited area or a limited number of people. This is not typically the way business is run,? he says.
The work brought along several new experiences as well. Some, absolutely outside the scope of a corporate business head?s day-to-day functions. ?I had never met such people before and I was emotionally overwhelmed. For the first time, I saw the most wretched state of existence, situations that were beyond hope and the limits of how much one can take. I also met the best of people on such occasions. People whose goodness almost left one incredulous as to are these angels or what? And then again I have met the worst kind of human beings,? says Alexander.
The experience has left Alexander with a sense of appreciation for the marginalised. ?I think the commercial sex workers have a lot of leadership attributes. One can definitely learn much from them,? he says. He points out some instance. A sex worker needs to be charismatic, humorous and quick thinking if she wants to retain her customer and avoid trouble. She also needs to get along with various different sorts of people like the pimp, the policemen, her family members and her kids. It is absolutely critical to her business.?
?Similarly, a business leader must be able to interact with his teammates and know how to push the right buttons in everyone. A sex worker also needs to be courageous. She operates in inherently risky conditions and yet manages to beat the odds. A leader should also be able to undertake risk,? he adds.
Does Alexander have an opinion on the qualities of a good business manager otherwise as well? ?I think that one must be absolutely clear as to why one is doing something. A good manger always has the game plan absolutely clear in his head. The second thing to manage is execution. Having the right strategy is only 10% of the work done. Execution comprises the rest. A manager must also know how to appreciate people and how to motivate them,? he says.
With a long fruitful stint behind him, he is now writing a book about his experiences. Apart from his journey from corporate world to social sector and personal experiences from the same, the book will also talk on how prevention and social sector initiatives can be scaled up and run much like any ordinary business.
He says that the model developed by his organisation can be used elsewhere as well. ?The way we have done it with AIDS, I think one can do it with problems like child deaths and other diseases,? he says.
Alexander was not always keen on becoming a business leader. In fact, at one time, he wanted to pursue chess as a career. He almost did it as well. He became a master at 16 and got an international rating. Even at PwC, he continued to play chess on a professional basis and it was finally after he joined McKinsey that he stopped doing so.
He now plays the game for half an hour each day and about three to four hours on the weekend. He sees many similarities between chess and business, in general. ?It helps you concentrate. Sometimes you are in a deadlock and it is your intuition that helps you. In chess, if you can dominate a few squares, you know you can dominate the game. It is the same in business as well. If you can dominate a few key positions, you can defend your market share and maintain a lead. I can go and on. I see parallels between chess, business and life in general all the time.?
As a boss, Alexander says that perhaps people would find him a bit chaotic. What makes him frustrated is when employees are not giving in their best. He also thinks that employees or people who are not open to feedback are the ones most difficult to work with.
?When people are not open to positive criticism, it becomes very difficult to ask them to set things right. Such people also cease to grow as they repeat the same mistakes again and again. Issues he still finds challenging remain bureaucracy and red tapism. He also steers clear of cynics or people who are indifferent or not bothered beyond what directly affects their own life.
So what is Alexander like when he is not working or playing chess? ?I have several things that I may be fascinated with at any given point in time. For instance, right now I am trying to learn Urdu. I want to be able to read the Urdu poetry in the language better in order to understand it more,? he says.