When Jayesh Barot arrived in the UK from Uganda in 1972, like many other people of the Indian diaspora who migrated to the US and the UK, he had to completely rebuild his life. At just 22, he had already built a name for himself back home as a principled and dynamic businessman, able to support his family and send his three younger siblings through private school. However, life in Uganda was no longer tenable, and he sent his entire family to the US. He arrived in London with little money, hopes of going to study at Cambridge University, and all his worldly goods in one suitcase. Life was hard, moving from privilege and success to a precarious existence in a strange and unwelcoming new country. Jayesh held down two factory jobs while also starting at night school. His prior qualifications, enthusiasm and experience seemed to count for very little in the UK. A year later, in 1973, his childhood sweetheart Yasmin joined him. Her family had gone to India to escape Uganda in 1971. By 1975, Jayesh and Yasmin were married and had twins, and were running a small import business from their home - supporting Indians and other recent migrants in the UK - as well as working three jobs between them.
By 2020, Barot Group was one of the UK's most highly regarded boutique family businesses, looking after the financial and professional services interests of high-net-worth individuals and families. With offices in London, New York, and Singapore, and around 80 staff, the business was estimated to be worth $5bn. The group's brand was synonymous with a traditional and conservative culture of discreet customer service, deep loyalty to partners and suppliers, and unrivalled integrity. Some of their customers had been with them since the 1970s, even if day-to-day contract management had changed hands several times in the intervening years. While the global coronavirus pandemic caused a shock to Barot Group, with impact on revenues and contracts, not one customer, supplier or staff member was lost during this time. Outsiders attributed this to the firm's culture, heavily influenced by the vision, style and values of its co-founders and carefully maintained by the next generation.
Jayesh and Yasmin ran the business with their three children: Wilfred and Peter, the twins, and Naomi, their daughter. Wilfred was responsible for the New York office, and his senior management team comprised extended family members. Peter ran the London office, although he deferred to Jayesh in most matters. The Singapore office had been set up by Yasmin for Naomi after a family disagreement in 2015. Yasmin wanted to keep Naomi in the business and gave her the freedom to run the operations in her own way and at arms' length. While the family spoke every day - with scheduled Zoom calls as well as ad hoc chats - Naomi never participated. At the beginning, she said it was due to the time difference, that the meetings didn't work for her schedule, but even after they were adjusted Naomi still didn't attend. Jayesh stopped asking, the twins followed suit. If Naomi was in contact with anyone, it was her mother.

Barot Group was notoriously autocratic, with most decisions made by Jayesh, or the immediate family. As much as the family were keen to maintain control, and with hopes that the next generation - Jayesh's and Yasmin's three grandchildren - would one day help lead the business, they also knew that outsiders would bring much needed difference and skills. In 2020, for the first time in Barot Group's history, and just as the world was going into lockdown, two non-family members were appointed to the executive management team in London. Asif Mohamed and Gina Fischer were made Group CFO and Head of Portfolio respectively, although neither had voting rights. While they were not family members, neither were they complete outsiders. Asif was the son of Jayesh's oldest friend, and Gina had been at university with Naomi.
As a 'new normal' was being established in a post-pandemic world in 2022, so the stability of Barot Group began to change. Staff turnover, which had always been well below industry norms, increased. Every quarter, and in all offices, staff were beginning to leave, including many who Jayesh had personally recruited and mentored over the years. He was not used to staff leaving, and certainly not at the current levels. Yasmin asked Gina to hold a few conversations with staff who were leaving or had recently left.
Gina found considerable resistance when setting up these meetings. Most of the staff she spoke to were reluctant to say anything that might be seen as critiquing the Barot family's reputation or the way the business was run. Staff members saw themselves as extended family, even if leaving, and with deep loyalty to Jayesh and his patronage. However, some themes were beginning to emerge.
The Barot family made a commitment to look after every staff member during the pandemic. This meant accommodating those who took on additional caring responsibilities, found themselves sick, or unable to work. All staff were given an allowance to set up home offices and to find a work pattern that fit around changing responsibilities. This deepened loyalty and motivation during lockdown. However, once a return to work was possible, Jayesh insisted that all staff transition back to office-based work within three months. Job satisfaction and motivation diminished as staff had become accustomed to working remotely. For Jayesh, being in the office together was about upholding the family bond.
A second challenge was around pay and remuneration. The Barot Group was known to recruit people on above average salaries as well as offering significant opportunities. Jayesh placed a high value on education and hard work. Any employee who had been with Barot Group for more than five years was eligible for a paid sabbatical of six months as well as funding to study part time. As attractive as this was as at recruitment, salaries did not keep up with inflation, there was no formalised performance management or appraisal approach, and promotions and pay rises were at Jayesh's discretion. Some staff fared better than others. Staff members needed to balance job security and stability with the rising cost of living, and for some this was no longer viable.
A third challenge was around Barot's culture, which was a manifestation of Jayesh's values and principles. Its strength was loyalty and stability. Its disadvantage was rigidity and a disregard for the opinions and expertise of non-family staff members. Barot Group needed to respond to digital transformation, increased globalization, and alternative business models built for a volatile and uncertain reality. One departing employee said: "If Barot Group is going to last another 50 years, then it needs to become a more strategic, agile, and performance-driven organization. And that means transferring - or at least sharing - decision-making power and authority from Jayesh and his children to managers with the vision and capability that is right for our customers and stakeholders of the future. It can't be just about blood ties anymore."
Gina messaged Naomi, as she didn't know how to report back to Yasmin. Her gut was telling her that Jayesh's control and vision - while foundational to Barot Group's success - was becoming a liability. What was needed - aside from some short-term fixes on recruitment and retention - was a bigger conversation around succession planning, organizational structures, job descriptions and role clarity, addressing pervasive informality and patronage and differential treatment, and distributing leadership and accountability across the Group.
In terms of organizational structures, it seemed to Gina that Barot Group was built around the family members' skills, needs and preferences, rather than performing functions in the right way and with the right people. There were no organization charts, or defined reporting lines, and each of the three offices was run quite differently. For the last 10 years Jayesh and Yasmin had considered themselves as co-chairs so that the day-to-day running of the business could be done by their children. Some of the older clients still expected to be managed by Jayesh personally, and he did not like to disappoint. Yasmin had always been the person holding everything together, as a stabilizing influence on Jayesh and others. As she increasingly stepped back from this matriarchal role for the Group, there was an emotional and coherence vacuum. It was evident Naomi did not want the role. She was more interested in maintaining distance from the family. Wilfred ran the New York office with a degree of collaboration, almost like a partnership. While the management team comprised extended family, there were five altogether, he shared decision making with his cousins, and a premium was placed on staff consultation and engagement. London, the largest office, was still very much under Jayesh's control, even though Peter was named as the director. Asif and Gina were the only other members of the executive team in London. The Singapore office was the smallest, with fewer than 10 staff, but no-one was sure how Naomi ran this location, except that she had recently hired her son, Daniel, who had just graduated with a master's in international business.
From the perspective of job descriptions and role clarity, Jayesh eschewed formal title and roles for everyone, including himself and Yasmin. His rationale was that no-one had anything to prove except hard work, which he would reward, and that people should not be constrained by job titles. This seemed to work to an extent in New York, the office was small enough, and communication open enough that staff members knew what everyone was doing. There was the occasional duplication of effort, and sometimes critical tasks got missed, but people lived with it. It was occasionally useful to not be responsible or accountable. The situation in London was more complex, however. Peter had never been able to develop his own leadership style, he had received no encouragement from his parents, and the boundary of his authority was fluid. Sometimes he could make decisions without his parents commenting, other times they would try to persuade him to change his position, other times he was overruled by his father. Staff were unclear about what was expected of them and typically waited to be told what to do. It seemed to Gina that Barot retained staff who were compliant followers, rather than initiative takers.
This led to Gina's third observation: around staff competencies. Barot Group did not have the organizational professionalism in practice that their impeccable brand suggested. One of the benefits of a professionalisation process would be to raise levels of capacity, competence, and confidence among all staff through a blend of mentoring, learning, and doing. Staff knew how to perform day-to-day tasks very well, but had no training in, or experience of, modern business performance improvement, or in creating management efficiencies. Competence, confidence, and practices around leadership, management and teamwork were variable.
For all the sensitivity of the situation, Naomi did the unexpected. She forwarded much of what Gina had told her to her parents. This resulted in another conflict, this time involving the whole Barot family. While no-one directly blamed Gina, she felt she had lost Jayesh's and Yasmin's trust and confidence. Messaging went quiet. Wilfred arrived back in the UK. Everyone was incredibly polite and business like. A week later, Gina was asked to meet Jayesh, Yasmin, Wilfred, Peter, and even Naomi, who had flown back to London. Gina expected the worst, and it felt to her like a family wound as much as a professional crisis.
In the end, the meeting was attended by Jayesh, Yasmin, and Gina only. Jayesh told Gina how hurt he was, not so much about what Gina had discovered, but that she had gone to Naomi rather than him to discuss matters. He was disappointed that someone he regarded as family, would be so disloyal. However, he also knew that was Gina had discovered was the key to Barot Group's future. With the advancement of AI and other technological developments, the ageing workforce at Barot Group and a need to recruit a whole new generation of talent, alongside his own desire to retire, it was time for a commitment to succession planning and a transformation of Barot Group. Gina had the advantage of being almost family - trusted enough to help the group move forward - but also sufficiently outside the family to bring a different perspective, perhaps even challenge. And Yasmin wanted to find her successor for the group, a role she felt that Gina - in time - could step into. Jayesh offered Gina the opportunity to work directly with him and Yasmin in developing this transition plan, along with a small team of specialist consultants of his choosing. It would not be easy, she would not be popular, and could expect resistance and hostility from the twins and Naomi. She would have to decide what roles the three grandchildren might have. Daniel was already expecting a promotion, the other two worked elsewhere but Jayesh wanted them inside the business. And then there was the question of bringing in more outsiders into senior roles.
Jayesh gave Gina three months to decide if this was what she wanted, and to put together an outline of how things might progress over the next 18-24 months. If Jayesh and Yasmin agreed, they would tell their children to support Gina in every way possible.

 

Q1: as newly appointed consultant advising Barot Group provide a report outlining the factors that influence team effectiveness.

Q2: propose action plan for building a high-performing management team within barot group. 

Discuss with OB theories if possible.