Employees First, Customers Second: Turning Conventional Management Upside Down

A book which ossify the beliefs into open and transparent management..it asks the reader to challenge the fears of taking bold decisions for change and helps understand the framework too to some extent!
a must read for the managers thinking a radical and transparent change!!

HCL was founded by Shiv Nadar in 1976 at barasaati. Vineet joined the company in 1985.
Once Vineet was going from New York to Frankfurt he met a car racing driver and while talking to an incident he got some learning’s ”Speed up to get past the competitors and find open room to kit up yourself.” Earlier he was a lead in one of the HCL units known as “Comnet”. Now he joined HCLT (HCL Technologies)as a CEO which was going out of the race altogether. As he was a part of the HCLT since so many years hence company started looking him old as the company was losing its market share but growth was there.
So now he intended for change:-
When to change? Why to change? What level of change? Risks while changing?
In services business the EFCS approach is by putting employees first we create a fundamental change in the whole system and deliver the customers a unique value which in turn makes a difference from other companies.
Here are we with the phases of EFCS journey at HCLT:-
1) Mirror-Mirror: Creating the Need For Change:-
This book is narrated by Mr. Vineet Nayar about journey of his company in last Five years.
1) HCLT was growing in a fast manner but very less as compared to other pioneers and loosing the employees also to them.
2) HCLT was a race car which was losing its brakes and vehicle could easily crash.
3) We need to have a point A (starting point) and B (destination point) for any of the organization with mission, vision and values.
4) He explains that talented employee is the only asset for the company.
5) He focuses on value creation for frontline employees to achieve growth.
6) The company was not confirm about their point A(point of starting) and B(where do they want to go in future).
7) In the exercise of all aboard he started saying to everyone that now the time has came to
Get ready for the change and he is telling that there are three groups of people in the company:-
a) Transformers:- They were quite aggressive and frustrated with the old ways of working in the company and were waiting for the call of the owner as their anger was rising high and they demanded change immediately.
b) Lost Souls:- Filled up with all the negative thoughts and they were hopeless that nothing could be done by the organisation.
c) Fence Sitters:-They were only observing to above A and B category of people in a company. They always said nice things whenever it was expected from them.
So he decided to focus on transformers who will bring fence sitters and now the lost soul will fall silent or will leave the company.
Other factor for company’s current situation is:-
Excuse culture:- The employees were giving the excuses that as the outer economy is not doing good, slowdown is there hence our company is also not doing well although there was a problem in the company.
Praising the future:- Today also the people of the company were always looking the past and were feeling very pride and were totally unaware of the current struggling scenario of the company which was fighting in the global market for its existence and the market share was also reducing.
Gen-X was not given preference:-The people of the organisation were not supporting the youth staff because of which one of the assignments was left pending.
Inverting the pyramid:- To create a real and distinct value for the customers we need to take care of the employees and give them priority. EFCS
He was inspired by Nelson Mandela, Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr. Now he started going to all his centres throughout the whole world and explain the concept of EFCS to everyone and also the importance of POINT A and POINT B.
Till now we saw the reality of our situation and created dissatisfaction and made the hunger for the change.

Revolutionary management practitioner. Employee first & Customers second in a must read for all. Research findings do predict certain change in employee behavior, specially generation X & Y which was in disagreement with traditional beliefs. This Book answers all the if, but and why; and also provide solution for making things better. Concepts like transparency, passion, commitment, employee benefit, are no longer concepts only they are reality and being practiced.

Excellent story about own experience, how one company can be turn around by giving little importance to own employee! good analysis of modern management trend & how business acumen has been change. Now values & mindset of young people changes so fast that very few like Vineet Nayar can understand thing very well & get quick result. Waiting for new release from him.

One of the best management book that i have read recently.EFCS-can be a very practical reference book for Leaders across the industry.The concept of EFCS /Reversing the Pyramid/Creating Value Zone are powerful yet very practical to adopt .Thanks Vineet for this Gem...