“Managing Corporate Ethics through Best Practices in

Organizational Behavior Worldwide”

Vic Kulkarni
President & CEO
Sequence Design, Inc.
Overview of Breakout Session

‰ The sooner companies begin start discussing and enacting

processes for managing integrity standards, the better!
‰ “Leadership with Trust” to promote ethical behavior
‰ A modern business ethic must be based on a clear
understanding of fundamental relationships in organizations
(*)
ƒ Between employer and employee, superior and subordinate
ƒ Must specify universally applicable rules of behavior for managers and
employees of an organization
ƒ Ethics of prudence and self-development and ethics of interdependence

(*) Ref: Peter Drucker, “What is ‘Business Ethics’?”, The Public Interest, No. 63, Spring 1981, pp 18-36.

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Breakout Session Contents (cont’)

‰ I will be discussing practical ways to manage the

“Corporate Culture” within our company’s Centers of
Excellence in Santa Clara, Westford, London, Delhi
and Tokyo
‰ Examples of business ethics issues in India
ƒ “Intel fires 250 employees in India” Economic Times, Sep 2005
ƒ Faking bills to claim conveyance allowances, drivers’ salaries, expense
reports etc
ƒ Narrow vs broader approach of business ethics
ƒ Limited response to the concerns of local community in which the Company
operates vs consideration of social responsibility in all business decisions

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 “SMART Sequence” Culture

… Making “Sequence a GREAT place to work FOR and work WITH”

Vic Kulkarni
“SMART Sequence” Culture

‰ What is “SMART Sequence” culture?

‰ Overall principles

‰ Management and employee behavior guidelines

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 What is “SMART Sequence” Culture?

“SMART Sequence” is a set of simple guiding principles of corporate

behavior which we preach and practice in daily lives to make Sequence
“A GREAT place to work FOR and work WITH”

S Style
M Mindset
A Attitude
R Reputation
T Teamwork

Vic’s Comments: I have formulated these principles and guidelines from my previous companies (Avant!,
VLSI, CrossCheck, Fairchild and National Semiconductor) and from my mentors.
I learned these simple principles over the years from managing engineering, marketing, sales and G&A
organizations in U.S., China, Japan, UK, France and India

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“S” : Style

‰ We have an “open door” style of management and communication

‰ We believe in being “Brutally honest, but not being brutal” in our daily
communication
‰ We do NOT believe in “geographical barriers” for decision-making or
any hierarchy. All Sequence global locations have same importance
‰ We do a “fairness test” when making internal management decisions
about people, comp plans, projects and priorities
‰ We do NOT tolerate favoritism– all employees have an equal chance to
excel in their work and they are measured purely on their performance
ƒ “Leadership is an ACTION, not a POSITION”..

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“M” : Mindset
‰ We encourage and exhibit “start-up spirit” in our actions
ƒ “Start-up spirit” has NO relationship to the size of the Company, it is a scalable mindset

‰ We believe in proposing a potential solution when we report a problem to our

colleagues or to our management
‰ We do NOT have “empire building” mindset; If we see one, we break it down

‰ We escalate issues in a timely manner without being a “cry wolf”--- This is very
important to get a timely resolution without wasting Company resources
‰ We do not go behind our peer’s backs; we confront them and resolve issues– in
cases when it is not possible, we gather facts and seek help through our chain of
command
‰ We follow simple guidelines espoused by many great leaders in the world…
ƒ Agree and commit
ƒ Disagree and commit
ƒ Disagree and dissociate
…. But do NOT agree in front of everyone, disagree in heart and “back-stab!”

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 Examples of Iconic Great Leaders

‰ Japan
ƒ Morita-san : SONY
ƒ Matsushita-san : MATSUSHITA CORP
ƒ Okuda-San : TOYOTA
ƒ Mitarai-san : Canon
‰ India
ƒ Ratan Tata : Tata Enterprise
ƒ Anand Mahendra : Mahendra & Mahendra
ƒ Narayan Murthy : Infosys
ƒ Aziz Premji : Wipro

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 Model for Effective Feedback & Corrective Action

Rapid Feedback Loop

Change

“Function”
INPUT Accountability and
OUTPUT
Responsibility

If Output is NOT satisfactory….

Provide timely feedback,
Change Input,
Obtain desirable results!

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 Consensus Building with Team or Management

“Pain in the Neck”

Neck” Zone if
initial alignment is NOT
Approval done earlier

Sync up ideas at this

Stage before spending
a lot of time and effort

Time & Effort

An important approach for alignment with your peers and management!

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 “A”: Attitude

‰ We do NOT tolerate politics in our workforce

‰ We have a “winning” attitude in our daily behavior

‰ When we engage with customer evaluations, we engage to WIN

‰ We do NOT make casual commitments to each other or to third parties

or to our customers…
ƒ However, when we make a commitment we do the best that we can to meet
or exceed our commitments

‰ We are always humble in front of our customers

‰ We reward people with “STAR” recognition awards on a quarterly basis

in the areas of
ƒ Start-up spirit
ƒ Customer satisfaction
ƒ Teamwork
ƒ Outstanding achievement

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 Local Applicability

‰ Relationships are very important in India and in

Japan
ƒ Build after-hours relationships
ƒ Feel socially comfortable first, build trust and then do
business
ƒ Don’t be “harsh” in your approach
ƒ Never call a customer by first name (changing slowly)
ƒ Never insult a customerÆ he is always RIGHT!

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 “A” Attitude– Loyalty vs Competence Matrix

High
Competence

Difficult Ideal
To Manage Employee

Undesirable Trainable
Employee Employee
Low

Low High
Loyalty to Sequence

Toughest management decision:

Letting the employee in the top left quadrant go
(India/ US: 60-90 days; Japan ~9 mo -1 year!

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 “R”: Reputation
‰ We strive to create high reputation with our customers by
ƒ Listening to them and providing them unique and innovative products and
support to solve their tough problems
ƒ Setting right expectations and then meeting or beating them
‰ We believe in strong alignment of “Strategy” and “Tactics”
ƒ Strategy = “Doing the right thing”
ƒ Tactics = “Doing things right”
…. for Customers, Employees and Stakeholders

‰ We do NOT believe in making inflated claims which are false

‰ We do NOT want you to bring in any IP from anywhere else in our

Company, nor do we want you to take our IP anywhere else!
‰ We do NOT “shoot the messenger” when someone delivers the “bad
news”--- but rather we immediately take a corrective action!
‰ We follow the “best hiring practices”
ƒ No geographical, racial, or religious barriers

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 Local Applicability
‰ Hiring practices vary from U.S. to Japan to India
ƒ Nep.o.tism:
ƒ Favoritism shown to a relative, especially in appointment to a desirable position
ƒ In non high-tech world, it is still quite common to hire people from their families–
rationale being built-in “trust”
ƒ Sanyo: Company promoted people from “Izutsu Family”
ƒ India: Most of the modern leaders do NOT encourage hiring from families any
longer
ƒ U.S.-- Hiring people from your school (Harvard, Stanford, MIT… ) – A different
kind of “favoritism”

‰ Corruption at low levels is non-existent in US and Japan, but exists at

very high levels
‰ In India, the country is still going through social changes, however
one finds corruption at all levels in “non-high tech” world
ƒ Currently a check-and-balance system like “60-minute style” investigative reporting,
in-depth financial analysis of public companies and their practices through world-calss
financial institutions, open forum interviews on NDTV, CNN-India, Star-TV etc

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 “T”: Teamwork

‰ We believe that strong teamwork between our global

workforce leads to Company’s success

‰ We offer help to our colleagues when we have available

bandwidth independent of group, location, territory plans or
time zones

‰ We treat our external partners such as distributors and

consultants as extension of the workforce and treat them with
respect that we would give to our internal colleagues

‰ We team up with customer/partners to guide us in product and

technology validation and future directions

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Be a SMART Sequencer!!

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