How Companies are Managed, Role of a professional CEO

"....'eastern mystical' philosophy, mystical in the sense that the influence of 'science' in our thinking is nil...".

I fully agree with you on this. This is 100% correct. That is one of the reasons why many eastern solutions often fail miserably.

"... More of our thinking is based on relegious and speculative methods  a nemesis for pragmatic thinking which are taboo for 'scientific' thinkers. Our philosophy thus fail in the 'execution side' and our society improves slowly than western countries...."

Agreed. This type of thinking is not limited to India alone, you can see this even in the Arab world except in a few places/countries where they have involved westerners in their planning and execution.

Well, it is difficult to push that kind of western thinking into Indian society because the core of India views western philosophy with suspicion. This core believes that western thinking is morally corrupt and degrading and that it involves a deep conspiracy to "christianise" the whole of India. So, there isn't much we can do here other than to sit and watch this whole non sense.

"....factoring a problem into its component parts and solving the problem studying the interrelationships of the components to the whole problem..."

I agree with you on this statement. That is why in an organization we have several departments so that a problem can be divided to its atomic state and then can be handed over to each of the departments.

thanks for the post sir:)

Mr. Ramchand, let me finish of a little bit now. You might ask me what is the relationship  to the word Cartesian or Newtonian to what I wrote. It is DeCartes who showed the world that 'events are 'relative'' meaning an even is relative to its components. So one can abstractly describe an even as a point in a Cartesian axis of X and Y. So such phiosophies came to be known as Cartesian mechanics, mechanics since 'forces' are involved. When Newton stated 'every action has its own reactions' he meant the same, component forces creates reaction which are events per se in a Cartesian co-ordinate system.
The piece I wrote on management is of western philosphical natute with entries in the accounting statements as forces which are used as scales to climb to the ultimate events of performance a Cartesian philosphical solution to how companies need be run in the western philosophical sense.
Our companies worry more on spontaniety in events and our work force remain stressed more than their western counterparts and produce less output for more work done in eastern philosophical environments. Hope it is more clearer to you now why I call it Cartesian mechanistic view of management. Thanks.

Mr. Ramchand, let me continue, what I wrote about the difference between western and eastern world thinking is the major cause for the 'east west divide' where people in the western culture or people from eastern culture fail to understand each other and their works.
Our sages believed in 'spontaneous generation' of events which passed on to posterior generations in the east and they started solving problems to or managing based on this philosophy of spontaneous generation of events. Whereas westerners believed one has to 'factor down' problems to their components and study the influence of the interactions between the components to the manifested phenomenon. Thus they designed their societies which progressed faster than eastern societies.
We in India has all sorts of problems clinging on to our eastern philosophy which can be considered as 'consciousness of the past' and the Cartesian mechanical view as the consciousness of the present and future. 
Westerners call our philosophy or organic or holistic thinking as 'eastern mystical' philosophy, mystical in the sense that the influence of 'science' in our thinking is nil. More of our thinking is based on relegious and speculative methods  a nemesis for pragmatic thinking which are taboo for 'scientific' thinkers. Our philosophy thus fail in the 'execution side' and our society improves slowly than western countries.
I was glad  you asked me Mr. Ramchand and thanks.

Mr. Ramchand, Cartesian mechanics also Newtonian mechanistic view is about factoring a problem into its component parts and solving the problem studying the interrelationships of the components to the whole problem. 
In Game Theory which is a western civilizations contribution to humanity depicts a practical example of this philosophy. The 'existential form graph' which describes the different stages of a 'game' is one of it. 
Our eastern culture adorns 'organic culture' which is 'holism' per se which emmnate directly from our consciousness which believes in 'spontaneous generation' of events. We never bother factor down problems to their components, we worry only about events and their outcomes which is called 'organic' thinking. 

Thank you Mr. Cherian for a beautiful post once again.  Personality and perceptions of the CEO decides the fate of the organisation.  CEO confined to cabin and figures can not run an organisation in the present scenario.  

Success today does not guarantee success tomorrow.  Many companies become too focused on executing today’s business model.  We should not forget that  Business models are perishable and go on change.  

Financial well being is more important for an organisation to sustain and flourish.  But, it is not all.  There are many factors to contribute for a fat financial statement at the end.  CEO should be ready to appreciate this fact. 

Try to be leader in the present.  Dont rely heavily on the past.  Be bold enough to leave away the past glory for a more promising future.  Dont succumb to the pressures of day to day. Focus  the future.

Mr.Cherian, I am curious! Can you please (if you don't mind) tell me what this Cartesian Mechanistic management is all about?

Mr. Munshi, even though your comment directly portray the methods of a ceo as organic, if it was inferred by you from my blog, it was not what I intended. My idea was just the opposite to show how 'Cartesian Mechanistic' management work out. In India most of the work gets done organically, our culture for some reason, hasn't incorporated 'mechanistic'  methods in management as well as in social life systems prevailing here. I intended to just expose this culture to how western management work on a daily basis. Thanks.

The job of a person who manages a company is to some extent equivalent to that of a music conductor in a symphony orchestra. The conductor ought to know (at least a minimum knowledge) each instrument used in the orchestra. He/She also should know how to bring the best out of each of these instruments and the people playing it. Overall, he has to lead the orchestra in such a way that it produces the most wonderful music.

Thanks Mr. Cherian for your beautiful analysis.  A professional CEO should not develop an attitude of "Penny wise Pound foolish", try to convert pipeline status into reality, without disregarding human resources and work towards relating the corporate objectives (both mission and vision statements) with the day today functioning, find out deviations and variances on a regular basis between the budget and actuals and suggest and implement a proper course of corrective action!