Build a Successful Business: The Entrepreneurship Collection (10 Items)

HCL’s CEO Explains How He Persuaded His Team to Leap into the Future

by Vineet Nayar

Vineet Nayar is the CEO of HCL Technologies and the author of Employees First, Customers Second: Turning Conventional Management Upside Down (Harvard Business Press, 2010).

The Idea

To transform HCL, CEO Vineet Nayar got employees to acknowledge the crisis, pioneered a unique “employees first” culture, kindled people’s passions—and danced.

Imagine waking up to find yourself perched on a window ledge outside your corner office. The building is on fire. The windows won’t open. The ledge narrows to nothing on both sides. You could stay put and pray that someone will rescue you. Or you could leap—you hope—to safety.

That’s the metaphorical choice I faced five ...