It is a fantasy that most employees often indulge in - a workplace without a boss. But can such an utopian office ever become a possibility? Tough, but certainly doable, feels Professor T.T. Ram Mohan of IIM Ahmedabad.

  Through his book RethINC, Ram Mohan sounds a wake-up call for corporate India, by highlighting some of the major problems staring it in the face and suggesting fixes for it. According to him, the inability to harness employee talent, outsized executive pay, and ineffective boards have become all too pervasive today and threaten the very existence of companies.

   He feels these ailments are symptoms of a fundamental flaw - the undemocratic character of companies. Among other things, the book criticizes the concept of incentive pay to achieve targets, as well as the star culture that many organizations actively encourage. Getting measurable results by dangling rewards in front of a favoured set of employees saves....