Mediocrity thy name is HR--Convenient truths are more harmful.. 🙄?

Thanks, Navin Upadhyaya and Kamal Karanth for talking about 2 issues primarily in this podcast.

The initial question was: "During executive search, we often get asked by the CXOs "What's the mandate?"
I believe the longish, yet not straight answer came in this form:
1. Influence without Authority
2. Reinvent yourself

With no malaise, I find both answers digressed and rather politically correct, but they missed the real answer by miles!
Convenient truths are more harmful.. 🙄
The best answer came from the person who asked this questions, i.e. Kamal Karanth himself 😅 and I loved it.
The answer he gave was, I chose to quit when there was no mandate! Bravo.
I have done it several times myself. Such decisions are obviously tough and have consequences but saves your soul.
Question No. 2: Does Co-CEO model work? (For India, given that, there was a lone case of an Indian IT services which experimented with it, only to roll it back, as Kamal mentioned)
Navin talked about his experiences with it and how he saw it working. The caveat was, it worked as they worked as a team, collaborating as allies and complementing where the other tip toed..
Yesterday, on Kamal's post I cited one example from an energy company that I worked for, which had a Co-CEO model but with different sets of "Mandates"! Quite like a fork in terms of having independent strategies, set of leaders and focus areas/ lines of businesses..In this case, however, it failed as there developed two sets of groups, which behaved like fierce competitors, only to prove the other making wrong choices and decisions.
You remember that Steve Jobs Vs Wozniak fight? 😃 So, in case I mentioned, the Co-CEOs finally got disbanded and the CFO with prior CEO exp in same industry took over and it has been 6 years, since then and they seem to be doing as usual..
Very interesting was to learn from Navin when he mentioned certain MNCs with HQs outside of India, turning away from the hub and spoke model of saddling regional leaders in those geographies, and now it is focused as product or services as the key segments to manage regional businesses, while HQ gets it's total control.

Thank you both for sharing your views..

Kamal KaranthKamal Karanth • Following • FollowingCoFounder, XphenoCoFounder, Xpheno6d • 6 days ago

I spoke to the ever eloquent Navin Upadhyaya https://lnkd.in/gwR49wk3 on how he saw the loss of power in influential roles.

I asked him the following questions

1)Co-CEOs is a concept I am yet to come to terms with; What circumstances do you think Co-CEO as a concept can work in?

2) Large MNCs have these regional structures (EMEA, APAC) for operational efficiencies, and most often, for an Indian country head, they all become parallel power centres with the global Hq. Arent MNCs wasting their time in these multiple power centers, or is there something I am not able to see through?

3)Many leaders I meet are frustrated that they don't have a mandate.
do you think leaders can create their own mandate if there isn't a formal one given to them, or am I romanticising it too much?

4)As an HR leader, have you been able to influence/intervene when leaders have had no mandate or cut to size by the structure? How can HR really make a difference here?

5) In your journey as a leader have you ever felt that your role had no influence or impact or mandate and had to deal with it, if you can share how you came out of that?

Listen to him and tell him what you think of his take on no power at the top!