Managing Nothing: A narrative enquiry into innovation and leadership in the IT industry

Sudhir Varadarajan

ago 2015 · Authorsupfront Publishing Services P L

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 The Indian IT industry, which has grown at a phenomenal rate since 1991, today finds itself on the brink of a potentially painful transition to deliver more value and innovation. Managing Nothing throws new light on the challenge of innovation that has dogged the industry for over two decades.

Drawing upon two decades of action research experience in two leading Indian IT firms, the author, through a narrative-reflexive inquiry, argues that the current crisis is not because leaders lacked foresight or business acumen. Instead, it is the limitation of mainstream managerial thought in dealing with the complexity of human interaction in global IT service networks that has reduced the pursuit of higher level capabilities such as consulting, service design and innovation to nothing.

To help correct the situation, the book makes a startlingly obvious yet counter-intuitive suggestion: it exhorts managers and employees to pay attention to the small differences that emerge in ordinary day-to-day workplace interactions among people, i.e., the micro-politics of everyday work. 

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Sudhir Varadarajan, PhD in Systems Engineering and Management from IIT Madras, is a consultant-catalyst with specific interest in service design, innovation and strategy.

He has strong experience in identifying and developing new sources of differentiation for two leading Indian IT services firms through technical and managerial roles in software development, consulting, R&D, key account management, practice development, marketing and business strategy.

Beyond the call of duty, he has also actively contributed to governmental initiatives aimed at improving the quality of engineering education in India and been a guest faculty for “Contemporary Issues in Management” at IIT Madras since 2007.

The author can be contacted at [e-mail].