Meritocracy life blood of organisations: Narayana Murthy

Bangalore, Jan 8 (UNI) Infosys Technologies Chief Mentor N R Narayana Murthy today said meritocracy is the life blood of any organisation.

Participating in a CEO conclave at VLSI 2007 here, he said ''once you start hiring few second raters, they will start hiring third raters and this chain of reverse meritocracy will expand rapidly.'' This would result in an organisation of nth raters, he added.

On his mantra for building a successful global business, the IT czar said ''a leader's success is defined by how well he can synthesise the bird's eye view of the world with the worm's eye view.'' He said aspiration was the main fuel of progress and cited Infosys as an example. The company, which was started with just seven people, had set out to become the most respected corporation among over 6,500 listed companies in India.

Mr Murthy said every leader must have a mental model of the business with a clear idea of the revenue and cost drivers. ''There is an optimal level of ignorance at every level of hierarchy in the organisation - ignorance of lower or higher level will render the CEO inefficient; the trick is to know the level,'' he added.

He said unless ''we leverage the power of youth, it is difficult to do extraordinary things - in most strategic things I do, I ensure that a significant percentage of the team has people below thirty.'' UNI