For Mahindra, culture emerges through everyday conversations, with the aim of building an institution that enables everyone to reach their full potential
Anand Mahindra’s approach to hiring top leadership is deceptively simple: a 90-minute unstructured conversation that tests curiosity and decision-making without scripts. This philosophy drives the Mahindra Group’s ESEE framework, with ‘Enable’ identifying leaders who can execute complex strategies independently.
Anand Mahindra’s trade secret for hiring top leadership is disarmingly simple: a 90-minute, unstructured conversation. No scorecards, no preset questions—just an attempt to observe one thing: curiosity, and how a leader will behave when there are no scripts to follow, when no one is watching. At its core, Mahindra’s model links leadership, risk, and execution into a single system—one that allows the group to place early bets without losing strategic discipline.
Mahindra outlined these ideas in a recent interview with McKinsey, where he spoke about leadership, risk-taking, and the group’s transformation playbook. Within the Mahindra Group, that conversation is not an outlier; it feeds into a larger system through its ESEE framework—Envision, Structure, Enable, Energise—with “Enable” at its core: identifying leaders who can take on complex, evolving business challenges and execute without constant direction. If “Envision” defines the future and “Structure” builds the organisation, “Enable” determines who is trusted to carry that strategy forward.
From Potential to Performance
That philosophy has shaped both leadership decisions and business bets at Mahindra. Veejay Nakra’s trajectory is a case in point. After working on the launch of the Scorpio SUV in 2002 and going on to establish it as its first brand manager, Nakra demonstrated his ability to build and scale a product—before being tapped to lead the group’s South Africa business, a move that raised eyebrows internally but has since paid off with Mahindra emerging as one of the fastest-growing auto companies in that market.
As the group expanded, this leadership-first approach was scaled under CEO Anish Shah, whom Mahindra credits with fine-tuning the fast-track development of high-potential talent. The underlying idea is simple: people stay when they grow, not because of perks or pay.
Where Strategy Meets Risk
Mahindra has often traced this approach to his early training in filmmaking, where he learned to spot patterns, build narratives and empathise with characters. Leadership, in his view, is not very different—understanding motives, shaping a story and inspiring people to play their part. That perspective has also informed how he approaches risk: not as a binary bet, but as a constructed narrative with multiple outcomes.
That lens was evident when the company launched the Scorpio SUV in 2002—a move widely seen as risky at the time. Internally, however, it reflected what Mahindra describes as “asymmetric risk-taking”—where the downside is limited but the upside can be transformational.
The same logic applied more than a decade later when the group began investing in electric vehicles, long before the market gained traction and at a time when the decision drew scepticism. With India’s EV market now accelerating and Mahindra’s electric SUV portfolio gaining ground, those early bets are being reassessed. Within the company, they are seen as an extension of the same playbook: envision early, structure for scale, and enable leaders to execute without waiting for certainty.
Culture by Conversation
Over time, this approach has also shaped culture. “Culture is built conversation by conversation,” Mahindra has said, arguing that it cannot be imposed but emerges from how leaders behave when no one is watching.
That thinking found expression in the group’s “Rise” philosophy. “Rise isn’t about Mahindra rising—it’s about enabling others to rise. Whether it’s a farmer whose tractor helps him double his yield or a woman who gets her first bank loan, that’s the measure of success. That one word gives people a sense that they could be more,” Mahindra has said, describing it as a purpose-driven identity that employees across levels have come to own.
Going Beyond Personal Legacy while Building Polymaths, Not Specialists
The same belief underpins how Mahindra develops leadership. Its executive programs are designed to create polymaths rather than specialists, based on the idea that the future belongs to those who can connect dots across disciplines, an approach aligned with the group’s need to operate across diverse sectors.
Mahindra has pushed back on the idea of personal legacy, arguing that what endures is not the individual but the institution. As he puts it, the goal is to build “a company in which people were the best that they could ever be.”
Published on March 20, 2026
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