Industry's first managers were authoritarian. The owner's only concern was profits, and he gave a free hand to his managers on the shopfloor. And since there were few regulations, the managers did what they pleased. By the end of the 40s, organisations had become much bigger. The number of workers went up considerably, and managing them needed systems. Companies hired more managers to deal with that, but their management scope was limited. One manager would typically oversee only four or five officers and about 10 to 12 clerks. Simultaneously, the Factories Act of 1948 defined the worker rights and the employer's obligations towards him. This gave rise to the administrative style of management. The manager was still the boss, but now he had a rule book to thrust in the face of the worker.

Public sector undertakings in the 50s and 60s brought a laid-back style of management. Employees were rarely set up with steep challenges, and indulgent benevolence became the norm. With the state policing industry, paper work and bureaucracy became the buzzword. Since the bureaucrat's power was almost absolute, he tended to be like the 1920s authoritarian manager. This kind of management by bureaucracy continued through the 80s.

With the 90s came the professional managers. Globalisation and privatisation internally opened up new industries, and as Indian groups scrambled to invest, they needed managers who could function as de facto owners. Besides, technology changed rapidly. Suddenly, the manager had to become a facilitator.

Dressing Up Salarymen

Steel factory workers on their way to work

G.D. Birla liked to see his managers clean-shaven and in suits. But Birla was more an exception than the norm. While some progressive Indian promoters themselves liked to dress up nattily, they rarely imposed any dress code on their employees. That meant the office-goer could wear pretty much what he wanted. Yet, like it happens even now, there were sartorial fads that came and went. The preferred attire from the 20s to the 40s was the dhoti and blazer combination. In the 50s, when India corporations started looking westward, suits, pointed leather shoes, and thin ties became fashionable. The following decade, however, brought a wave of socialism, and the dress code of the day-white, pleated trousers and short-sleeved white shirts-reflected that spirit. The 70s proselytised private enterprise to the religion of the state and, therefore, the safari suit emerged as the babu's sartorial staple.

The past two decades-especially the 90s-saw major upheavals in professional clothing. The rise of information technology stood corporate dressing rules on their head. While software companies and dotcoms slipped into jeans and sneakers, even the pin-striped bankers and marketers took to more casual dressing. Away from the offices, the worker's dress code-except in some industries-went unregulated. The two Factories Act of 1891 and 1948 only sought to make the workplace safer for the worker, without prescribing any dress code. But some big manufacturing companies laid down their own rules not only to increase work safety, but also to build a sense of camaraderie. To the executive, clothes were what made him. Today, it is even more so.

The Board Through The Ages

Tata Steel's Dorab Tata (seated middle) with other directors

Because money was usually raised from within the promoter community, the early textile mills of Bombay were run by 'managing agencies' (often the principal promoter was the manager), which received a commission on the mill's assets and sales, and later only on profits. The board, which comprised all the other major shareholders, only had titular powers. By 1951, there were some 36 managing agency firms-including the Birlas, Dalmias, Singhanias, and the Tatas-controlling more than 600 industrial concerns, most acquired from departing Britons.

Licences and quotas forced companies to expand via hundreds of small units controlled through a maze of cross-holdings. In 1969, the government banned the managing agency system. Instead three categories of management were allowed: Direct management; management by board; and indirect management, via a managing director and whole-time board of directors. While the amendment succeeded in changing the management structure, it did nothing to rid the system of either cross-holdings or favouritism on the board.

Liberalisation changed that. With restrictions gone, companies could consolidate their holdings, not just for size, but also to protect against takeovers. More business-friendly norms on inter-corporate investments, and taxes on direct investments have made it easier for groups to unravel their cross-holdings. New norms on corporate governance have now delineated responsibilities among three stakeholders: the shareholders, the board of directors, and the management. The party, as they say, is over.

An Old Contract Expired

By virtue of being family-owned and managed, most Indian companies have been very personal. The key executives in them were either the promoters themselves or their kith and kin-people they trusted. Therefore, spelling out the terms of their employment contract was not necessary. The business was theirs, and they expected to be part of it as long as they lived.

The same was true of the non-family employees they hired. Employment, implicitly or explicitly, was for lifetime. Jobs were transferable within the company and the group, but no one was ever in danger of getting fired or laid off. That happened only in cases where misconduct or disloyalty was suspected or proved. Still, there was tremendous amount of animosity between the owners and the workers. The former were seen as greedy capitalists who were enriching themselves at the cost of poor workers. That strengthened the trade union movement, and in the 70s and 80s, it became a powerful force, setting the terms of employment for the worker.

Partly in a bid to break that and partly in response to stiffer competition, companies in the 90s started offering contractual employment. On paper, the employee was hired for a fixed period, although in reality employment was assured as long as the person delivered. Once again, it companies, because of their unique business environment, ushered in new kinds of employee engagement terms, which others have now cottoned on to.

In return for more money, employers earned themselves the flexibility of hiring and firing white-collar workers (blue-collar rules are still complicated). One thing that became apparent in the 90s-especially towards its end-was the death of job security. A new market for talent had arisen. And, as the decade came to an end, it was looking more and more like the auction system.

The Organisation's Jargon
BT takes an irreverent look at the jargonaut that steam-rolled plain English.

Angels: Technology entrepreneurs giving a start-up its seed capital

Attention Economy: Money comes when customers listen

Benchmarking: How organisations better the Joneses

Buy In: It's the age of consensus. No agreement, no win

Core Competence: Do what you are best at. Junk the rest

Change Management: You missed the bus. Now fix the mess

Differentiation: This is what an organisation with attitude does

Disintermediation: Know the middleman? Well, he just died

Downsize: You hired just too many morons. Time to let go

E: Once the most popular prefix, robbed millions of investors

Empowerment: A polite way of stopping the buck down below

Flat Organisations: Where the fat middle walked the plank

Globalisation: Men, markets, and money could be anywhere today

Intellectual Capital: The sum of what your best brains know

Leverage: Companies waking up to the Archimedes' Principle

Mass Customisation: Letting your customers do their own things

New Economy: The rise of technology as a business driver

Outsource: How companies get rid of essential but dirty work

Paradigm Shift: When business models fly out of the window

Reengineering: Reassembling your firm into something better

Stakeholder: Today, even the dog outside your factory is one

Synergy: An excuse for fooling around with your business

Value Proposition: Where logic fails, money may actually win

Virtual: It exists, but it doesn't... like your profits