The Young Managers, Mentors & their values

I recently went through a case study in Businessworld about YMs (Young Managers). It is about the reckless behavior of the Young Managers, their complete disregard to the seniors' suggestions & lack of readiness to learn from & correct their mistakes. Although I agree with most of the views in that case study, the thing that I thought was missing is the wrong values brought forward by today’s corporate culture. Where is the long term view of the things? All that today’s Corporates are worried about is bottom-line growth (Q-o-Q & Y-o-Y) & share price appreciation, at the cost of anything (Remember RJR Nabisco disaster?). Energy situation, Global warming & Sub-prime lending / over leveraged use of Derivatives causing current financial crisis to name a few.

Whilst this is the picture of values that you demonstrate to the so called ‘cream talent’ without significant experience & adequate EQ to get hold of the situation, what do you expect them to learn? The purpose of acquisition of the talent, their utilization does not seem to have any long term view per se. All the chores are directed towards one thing & one thing alone, annual results! How else would you explain the behaviour of cream talent like B. Ramalinga Raju in the light of ‘satyam saga’? All he was concerned about was the Y-o-Y bottom-line with complete disregard to the long term view of the business & the whole industry in turn. Or did he actually think that he could pull it off eternally (or did he not believe in the principle of company as a going concern)?

If the Corporates today were concerned about long term talent retention, would they not spend a significant time on grooming the talent they have acquired? But that is so not the reason of talent acquisition nowadays. The talent is acquired to fulfil a short term requirement, beyond which the utilization of the talent is not known to them. They acquire the talent keeping in mind that they are bound to leave after some period. So no need to spend time on grooming them or inculcating some corporate values in them. Where is the need of mentoring? In light of current financial crisis, the Corporates are offloading the relatively inexperienced talent without even giving them fair chance to prove themselves (again to sustain the short term profitability of the business & to maintain share valuations or what is left of it). After such an experience that is imparted early in their careers, do you expect them to ever be faithful to any of their future employers? Do you expect them to have any values other than saving their own skin at the cost of others? What can a senior manager or a mentor do in a situation like this?

In my view to conclude, the behaviour of the Young Managers of today is not a micro level issue but a macro level one. There are some very serious issues that need to be tackled about the manner in which the businesses are run nowadays. They are quintessential for survival of growth economics & capitalism as we know them.