Corporation as Campus, Business as Curriculum, Leader as Teacher

On Wednesday, April 19, Ravi, my new driver, wound his way through busy Bangalore until we reached a four-lane roadway that took us to Electronics City, the home of many of the multinationals. As we drove the streets, behind gated communities lay Hewlett Packard, Tata, Wipro, and countless others. I had seen the pictures, but nothing prepared me for the beauty of the Infosys Technologies Limited campus, which is what the company calls any of its locations. Often described as Disneyworld’s Epcot Center in real time, it is a lush, verdant array of gardens, architecturally intriguing buildings, walking pathways, and food courts. At Gate Four, I presented my business card and asked for Rajani Kanth Katragadda, the Associate Vice President of the Leadership Institute. The guard photographed me, examined my laptop and recorded its serial numbers, looked at other electronic devices, and then asked a woman guard present to examine my handbag.

Rajani arrived, greeted me warmly, and as we walked, he explained that whilst only ten years old, the Bangalore campus is called the heritage site. I found it an amusing example of the speed of light pace at which change happens today in India, for true governmentally-designated heritage sites in this nation must be at least one thousand years of age. Welcome to the new India. He and I settled into his office and began to talk. We had been corresponding for over a month and Rajani shared my interest in leadership, its relationship to the phenomenon of globalization, and its implications for each sector of society within each of our nations. He had suggested that in addition to my questions regarding development of human capital and development of the organization, that we discuss why many of the multinationals are investing in growing leaders, what they are doing to create this pipeline, and the implications for the various stakeholders in the global economy—our governments, our educational systems, the private sector, and the non-governmental agencies, as well as future generations.

Following the formalities of obtaining his consent to participate in my study, we settled into a conversation that began with Rajani’s background and extended into nearly three hours of discussion about his work with leadership. He shared with me one of the founder’s visions of Infosys, which is Company as Campus, Business as Curriculum, Leader as Teacher. Clearly, one of the deeply-cherished assumptions of this young, twenty-five year old company, is that learning is a value that permeates all facets of the organization. Rajani explained that in the beginning Infosys did not “grow” its own leaders, but that over time—approximately 6 years back—they came to recognize the value of raising up their own—that a living and thriving organization and the individuals in it could develop present leaders and raise up new ones. Their tiered system of leadership development creates opportunities for present management to learn in formal settings and for identified future leaders to begin the work of moving toward leadership positions.

Rajani emphasized that the critical question at the beginning, and one that recurs, is “Why? Why should we develop leaders?” As they began to work through the answers to this question, the next one became, “What do we teach them?” Finally, “How do we teach them?” became the natural outgrowth of the what. The What of leadership evolved over time. At first, the focus was on leader competencies. Over time, it became competencies and business outcomes. Rajani says that at this point, they theorize that leadership is more about a “state of being,” not too dissimilar from many of the principles embedded in Hinduism, but that they are still actively engaged in the competencies and outcomes model.

I suggested that as reflection is one of the principles of Hinduism, that the degree to which an organization is able to reflect—individually and collectively—is the degree to which it is moving toward that ideal state of being and of knowing, and that perhaps Infosys was not so awfully far away from recognizing state of being as an important aspect of leadership.


We both had lost track of time and were quite exhausted, and yet we had not even made it beyond his questions. I suggested we continue on my next visit to Bangalore. I often say that as a leader we should subscribe to two maxims: first, that less is more and second, that to move fast, one has to move slowly. Our conversation had been rich and revealing and multifaceted and there was no need to barrel through my agenda. Having committed a minimum of three years to this work, I had created a framework for building relationships with the leaders whom I meet—and with a focused effort to nurture these new friendships, I would have opportunities to meet with people again. Additionally, my training in cultural anthropology and my previous work in other countries told me that so much of my early visits to India would be about understanding the culture into which I had now found myself. The theory of Indian culture on which I had briefed myself well would pale to the reality of the experience of being here daily with people.

As our time was coming to an end, we walked the campus to one of the food pavilions, where we enjoyed an Indian lunch of dosas and chutneys. Rajani and I exchanged stories about our families. As we returned to his office, he invited me to join his family and him for dinner that night. This very generous man—generous with his knowledge, his time, and his experience—confirmed what I had heard of India: the guest is God and is respected above all else. I could only humbly accept his kind invitation with my thanks.