Leading Indian Institute of Management Ahmedabad

IIMA Director: 2013-2018

IIMA Offers Rs 1 crore to the top job!

When I read the news item this morning several thoughts went off my mid. I am penning below some of them.

First when I saw the headlines I thought placement has begun and this is the first offer to a student. As I read I was filled with surprise and sadness. First of all it has taken ten months for the Search Committee to find a Director for IMA and they don’t seem to have finalised yet. IIMA itself supplied Directors to various other institutions (IIMB, IIMC, IIML, IIMI, IIMK etc.) in the past. Any day it boasts of having Director material for any of the IIMs and other institutions. I strongly believe that it is true. History speaks for itself. Almost all of them from IIMA made very successful Directors at other Institutions. Some of them who could be great Directors are not interested in sacrificing their academic and other work for becoming a Director. IIMA itself had its Directors from within and the only exception was Dr. IG Patel. He was Governor Reserve Bank and came to IIMA for the name it had and to do some good to IIMA. To the extent I know he was not paid any higher salary for taking this job. Ravi Matthai always used to maintain that the highest point in the Institute should be library and the highest paid in the Institute should be a Chair Professor. He maintained that tradition as long as he was Director. If the new Director is paid a crore I am dreading the day when faculty would ask the Director to do things himself and refuse to do anything other than teaching. They will either start demanding equality and rat race for salaries may begin to spread to faculty. From a Faculty Governed Institute it will become a Director governed institute and it will be the first big blow to IIMA’s excellence.

In my view IIMA has enough potential Directors among its faculty. None of them would want such big salary jumps. To Direct IIMA would be considered by them as a mission and not a job with a crore salary. If the Search Committee appointed by the Board were not able to find, then I would fault the Committee itself and not anyone else. The Committee perhaps is a wrongly composed committee or it is searching for a lost ring (if any) at the place where there is light (USA and UK) than where it can be found.

Any search Committee would want to do a great job and find a great Director for IIMA. To this extent the Committee seem to have noble intentions and thought. However they seem to be unaware or unappreciative of the fact that delayed decision making creates a large number of new issues and makes it difficult for the new Director to handle them after they appoint him. On one occasion when the Director was appointed several months late and filled with controversies he ended up spending a lot of his time undoing the damage that has been done during the delayed period. The damage has already begun now with unrest among the faculty which was avoidable.

The newspaper reports say that there is no consensus among the Committee. I am not sure if this report is correct. If correct or incorrect it does its damage. Any committee would have differences of opinion, and I am sure they work with institutional interest in mind. However not being conscious of the consequences of the delay is a surprising thing. The Committee has significant number IIMA Alumni in it, and, I am not sure if all of them have been socialised to appreciate the Institute governance processes though they have been for long on the Board. The Institute is essentially a Faculty Governed Institute using consensual decision making processes. It banks heavily on what Ravi Matthai used to call “Upward delegation”. In this process the Faculty are supposed to take a lot of academic and administrative roles and decisions. They lay down the processes. The Board only supports them and links them to the external world and helps the Institute find its finances and maintain its leadership position. The Board rarely interfered with the internal processes which are very string and continued for long years. When the Faculty feel issues can be decided by a committee they delegate them to the Committee and the committee delegates to the respective Chairs, what they feel can be decided at the Chair level (PGP, FPM) etc. All activities are chaired by Faculty and the Institute functions smoothly. The Board which meets four times a year cannot govern the Institute day-to-day, but offer its guidance in governance by reviewing activities and making suggestions, by understanding vision, mission and aspirations and providing support to achieve the same. Without faculty governance IIMA would have never achieved the excellence it has achieved. The Faculty therefore have to be given their due.

The Search Committee at present did that by having a number of meetings with them. However by not speeding up their action, and in their eagerness to find a good Director which will being name and value to them and the Institute, I believe they have begun to falter. They are perhaps underestimating the impact of their delay on the health of the Institute. First it gives rise to unnecessary apprehensions and aspersions. These include baseless rumours like the interest of the Current Director to continue, or, attributions about the vested interests of the members of the Search Committee including the Chairman, the possible government interference etc. IIMA believes in case analysis and its faculty are fully immersed in dealing with any situation like a case study. It is this knowledge that they have given to the students and also the Industry, they apply to their own situation. Understandably they will apply this to the Search Committee and base their analysis on the information they have. For example if the position of two Deans is not filled at this point of time, and the Director has not appointed new Deans so that he does not saddle the new Director with his choices or he was not able to persuade any new members to take up the position at the end of his own term, it may get interpreted as the interest of the Current Director in continuing. Delays are attributed to the current Director although he may have no role to play. This affects the health of the Institute. Delay in appointing new Deans gets interpreted as the Current Director’s interest in getting another term etc. It is not people are political but it is that they are accustomed to case analysis and keep exploring alternate hypothesis.

There are also rumours that the Search committee is interested in getting a Harvard professor to join as Director. While this is a good idea on the face of it, it is not a workable idea, unless someone is ready to take this up as a mission and willing to resettle in India.  The soon the Committee realises it the better it would be for them and the Institute. Those who are Professors abroad have gone there for good and are not likely to enjoy the Directorship of IIMA. To be an IIMA Director needs the ability to deal with Ministry of HRD, AICTE, State Government of Gujarat, The Administrative staff, The aggressive faculty, ever growing student body and so on. It is complex administrative job and no committed intellectual from abroad will enjoy. Anyone who takes up the job with one crore salary will be looked at with suspicious as Stalwarts in the past who became Directors had high qualifications from abroad but are committed to this country and IIMA and never demanded higher salaries. They considered it a great opportunity and privileged to serve IIMA than for the salary they get.    The idea of getting a professor from abroad is a misplaced priority and misconceived notion beyond a point. The sooner the Committee realises this and speed up the process the better it is for them and for IIMA. Leading IIMA should be considered as a mission than a job.