Talk, Inc.

CHAPTER TWO

Walking the Talk

Hindustan Petroleum Corporation Ltd.

IN THE FIRST YEARS of the twenty-first century, the leaders of Hindustan Petroleum Corporation Ltd. (HPCL) launched an effort to develop a new statement of vision for the company. For an organization like HPCL— it’s the third-largest oil company based in India, with more than eleven thousand employees and with revenues that came to more than $23 billion in 2010—endeavors of that kind have traditionally taken place wholly or primarily in the upper ranks of management. In this case, however, those at the top of the HPCL organizational ladder decided to include people on lower rungs of the ladder in the work of envisioning a new future for the company. Starting in 2003, under the ...