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By:

Rahul Kulkarni

30 March 2025 at 3:32:54 pm

Why the Majority Doesn’t Matter

Most change fails not from resistance, but from weak coalition design. Even if you negotiate well, you can still fail for a boring reason: You built the wrong coalition. This week we step into the third act of this series: modernize without backlash. Most leaders walk into an MSME thinking change is a vote. If most people agree, you win. That’s corporate thinking. In legacy Indian SMEs, the majority is usually passive. The people who matter are the ones who can stop the flow.   Which Seat...

Why the Majority Doesn’t Matter

Most change fails not from resistance, but from weak coalition design. Even if you negotiate well, you can still fail for a boring reason: You built the wrong coalition. This week we step into the third act of this series: modernize without backlash. Most leaders walk into an MSME thinking change is a vote. If most people agree, you win. That’s corporate thinking. In legacy Indian SMEs, the majority is usually passive. The people who matter are the ones who can stop the flow.   Which Seat Inherited seat: you may have authority, but you still need backing beyond the family name. Hired seat: you may have ideas, but you don’t have a home team yet. Promoted seat: you may have relationships, but you don’t automatically have permission.   In cricket, you don’t win because you have 11 batsmen. You win because the field is set right for the plan. A bowler can be doing everything right and still leak runs if the field leaves gaps. Singles become boundaries. The team blames the bowler. But the real issue was field setting. That’s how change fails in MSMEs.   Veto Players A small blocking group can stall you even if everyone nods in meetings. They don’t argue. They sit at gates: - Money release - Purchase approvals - Dispatch control - Owner access They can delay, create exceptions, raise “data doubts,” or ask for “one more confirmation.” And then they do the most effective thing of all: quietly wait for your energy to fade.   Own Work In one assignment, I thought I had the room. People smiled, agreed, even said, “Very good”. Two weeks later, nothing had moved. Two gatekeepers kept adding small speed-breakers. Every objection sounded reasonable. Over a month, the pilot died … no drama, just suffocation. That’s when I learned: in MSMEs, you’re rarely battling resistance. You’re battling veto power.   Coalition Math Political scientist William Riker had a simple idea: you don’t need everyone, you need a coalition that’s just big enough to win and hold. In a company, that means: enough of the right people so the new way becomes unavoidable. And people don’t jump alone. Most switch only when they see others switching because nobody wants to be the first person who looks foolish. So, your job is not “get buy-in from 50 people”. Your job is: 1. Build a small winning coalition 2. Neutralise the blocking coalition 3. Make it visible so the passive majority follows Politics Drama Name the gates Write the 3–5 gates your change must pass through (money, approvals, dispatch, data). Then write who controls them in real life. Pick your first five supporters Not supporters in principle. People who will act. Five is enough to cover gates without becoming a crowd. Pay the coalition cost upfront Each supporter needs one thing to stay aligned: respect, safety, credit, clarity, control of exceptions. Ignore this, and support disappears the first time pressure comes. Neutralize blockers calmly You have three moves: Convert: give them a dignified role and protect the interest they fear losing. Bypass: redesign the workflow so their veto reduces. Contain: limit their veto to exceptions, not the main flow. What you should not do is start a public fight too early. That creates camps. Camps create long wars. Wars kill modernization.   Field Test Name your first five supporters for your next change. Against each name, write ONE concession they need to stay aligned. Example: “You chair the weekly ritual.” “Pilot data won’t be used for appraisal.” “You control exceptions, but exceptions must be logged.” “Your method becomes the base standard.” “Your role is made explicit.” If you can’t name five, you don’t have a coalition yet. You have a hope.   In MSMEs, the majority is tired, busy, and risk-sensitive. They won’t lead your change. They will join it when it feels safe and inevitable. So, stop trying to convince everyone. Set the field properly. Build alignment with five. Neutralise the two who can block.   (The writer is a co-founder at PPS Consulting. He is a business transformation consultant. He could be reached at rahul@ppsconsulting.biz.)

Predation at the Heart of Tech

The Nashik IT scandal is forcing India’s tech industry to confront failures of power and protection.

In the first week of this month, the Nashik city police registered nine cases involving attempt to religious conversion, sexual harassment and harassment at the workplace, all centred on a local branch of Tata Consultancy Services (TCS). The nine accused, including seven men and two women, held positions of authority such as team leaders and are alleged to have misused their roles to harass co-workers. The city’s police commissioner noted that several of the male accused appeared across multiple cases, suggesting coordinated misconduct. One woman is named in a single case of religious harassment, while another, an HR head, stands accused of discouraging a victim from filing a complaint.


The police say they are conducting a thorough investigation and have contacted agencies such as the SID, ATS and NIA to examine possible wider links. Initially, the first complainant was hesitant. Yet, after receiving support and counselling, more victims came forward, leading to multiple FIRs being registered. Central agencies, including the IA and IB, are exploring whether there was external funding behind these acts and whether the scandal forms part of a broader conspiracy. They are also probing whether the accused had engaged in similar acts in other companies, or whether this was their first organised attempt at forced religious conversions.


Modus Operandi

Preliminary findings suggest a troubling degree of preparation. Victims, investigators say, were often young women aged 18-25 facing financial hardship. Plans were allegedly made to approach and befriend them, initiate physical relationships, and then pressure them into religious conversion. Such claims would point not to spontaneous misconduct but to a pattern of predation enabled by workplace hierarchies.


N. Chandrasekaran, chairman of Tata Sons, termed the allegations “gravely concerning and anguishing,” announcing that a thorough investigation is under way under TCS’s chief operating officer, Arathi Subramanian, to establish the facts and identify those responsible. For a company long regarded as a bellwether of India’s IT services industry, the episode threatens reputational damage far beyond Nashik.


Regulatory scrutiny has also intensified. On April 15, the National Commission for Women constituted a fact-finding committee led by Sadhana Jadhav, a retired judge of the Bombay High Court. Assisted by a retired director-general of police from Haryana, a Supreme Court advocate and a senior NCW official, the committee will conduct an on-the-spot inquiry, examine the circumstances leading to the incidents and assess the response of authorities. Its findings are expected within ten days.


Structural Consequences

For the broader industry, the scandal may prove a turning point. Pareekh Jain, chief executive of EIIRTrend, an online information platform, calls it an eye-opener that could reshape how IT firms approach cases under the Prevention of Sexual Harassment (PoSH) framework. Global clients, he suggests, are likely to seek proactive PoSH audits across service centres, especially for junior employees and those farthest from corporate hierarchies. Absence of evidence, as he puts it, does not mean evidence of absence.


That shift could have structural consequences. Firms may begin voluntarily publishing PoSH reports, akin to ESG disclosures, to demonstrate to clients, boards and investors how complaints are tracked and resolved. The risk is no longer confined to misconduct alone but extends to failure of process under the Sexual Harassment of Women at Workplace Act. Raheel Patel, a partner at Gandhi Law Associates, notes that clients, especially international ones, may now demand tighter contractual assurances around compliance, audit rights and mandatory reporting. Workplace safety, in other words, risks becoming a commercial issue as much as a moral one.


Not everyone sees the matter in such stark terms. During a court hearing, counsel for the accused argued that in workplaces where men and women spend eight to ten hours together, it is common for observations to be made about one another. Such a defence, casual in tone, underscores precisely the problem: the normalisation of behaviour that crosses into harassment when filtered through power imbalances.


Others have sought to place the episode within a broader ideological frame.


Wokism and DEI

Abhijit Joag who is an expert in Wokism and renowned author this should not be viewed as an isolated incident. Wokism or cultural Marxism is internationally attempting to destroy culturally established norms in democratic countries. It has penetrated into education, media, entertainment, civil services, and the judicial system. Now it has targeted the corporate world. Capitalism is no longer the enemy of Marxism, now it is a struggle against culturally established norms. Elite today under the influence of Wokism have established their control over the corporate world. Their new jargon is ‘responsible corporate citizen’, ‘corporate governance’. Criteria for these have been decided by themselves. They are conducting audits of the company based on these norms and declaring if the company should be considered as good or otherwise.  ESG (Environment, Social, Governance), DEI (Diversity, Equity, Inclusion) are the new norms for auditing. Companies which provide employment to persons belonging to minorities, oppressed categories get higher numbers. Clients would purchase products from these companies.  As a result, HR managers would never take any action against such persons as they are part of the ecosystem.


In the name of DEI, which are only facades for ulterior motives, the real intention is to establish total control over corporate matters. In the name of satisfying these persons, it is necessary to delink the employees from their culture. Persons who have obtained their education from American Universities, and are under the influence of Wokism are now in a dominating position in the corporate world.  In the last couple of decades, China and Qatar have donated trillions of dollars to American universities to spread their ideology. China wants to spread Marxist concepts while Qatar is keen on Jihadi ideology. Students graduating from these places are completely brainwashed. Many Indian Universities are also championing these concepts here. They would champion ideas such as Islamophobia and justice for the downtrodden and justify DEI. It is imperative that the corporate world needs to reject this Wokism from their premises at the earliest.


President Donald Trump in his second term has given priority to reject the DEI and directed all universities, local bodies, schools and other institutions that unless these bodies get rid of DEI, they would not be provided federal financial aid which amounts to millions of dollars.


On April 15, 2026, The Washington Post prominently covered debate in Texas city over Trump’s national dilemma. Trump has given an ultimatum: End the city’s diversity programs or risk losing all federal funding. This would halt decades- old programs helping businesses owned by underrepresented minorities to get city contracts. In the US, it is the Latinos or Hispanics who have been benefiting from this DEI ideology. Trump’s directive extends from government entities to businesses to schools and more. The blacks who also benefited are equally disappointed. Increasingly the blacks are announcing they don’t need special considerations. Everybody who needs help, should be given the same.


Instead of blaming the victims and advising them to be more cautious, it is imperative to take measures to improve the system and address the root causes behind such incidents.  Similarly in India also time has come to reject these Marxist concepts at the earliest and advisory needs to be issued by MHA as well as Ministry of Corporate Affairs to all concerned.


The fact that married Muslim are indulging in giving false assurances to young Hindu girls and doing sexual assaults, underlines the need of adopting Uniform Civil Code (UCC).


Another important issue is about the fear or distrust pervading among victim young ladies. This gap between the terrified public and law enforcing agencies can be effectively filled in by promoting women and gents’ police mitras at every police station.


(The writer is former Director General of Police, Maharashtra. Views personal.)

 


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