Monthly Archives: September 2012

1-By Laksh, Books, Leadership, Management

‘I too had a dream’

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“I too had a dream” is an excellent memoir, of a nationalist entrepreneur, Dr.Verghese Kurien.
( Wikipedia article http://bit.ly/QrsWgr)

Here are some quotes picked up from the last chapters of the book, where he summarizes his ideas on leadership, management and his life in general.

  • “What is the primary job of an excellent manager? In my book, it is to bring in and groom the right people on the team. Once this is done, the manager must then groom the successor most appropriate for the institution”
  • “While integrity and loyalty are core values, there are other values too, which are a prerequisite to achieve success in any field. For example, the leader has to set a personal example and make others understand in what ways ‘change’ is going to be useful. I believe that professionals working in our organizations must have a clarity of thought combined with a passionate pursuit of mastery of their subject. I have always emphasized that large endeavors are only the sum of many small parts and, therefore we must keep in mind not just where we are going but how we are going to reach there successfully. I also believe that a person who does not have respect for time, and does not have a sense of timing, can achieve little.”
  • “As I never tire of saying, my colleagues did all the work and I collected all the awards.”
  • “I remember often explaining to Nirmala that it is terrible to have too little money because you will not even have enough to eat and appease your hunger. But it is far, far worse to have too much money because then you will surely get corrupt.”
  • “I may be old fashioned in my thinking but I have always believed that it is only when you get less than you are worth, that you can look for respect; if you are paid much more than you are worth you will get no respect.”
  • “Bureaucracies do not exist only in Governments. Tragically, most institutions given time and allowed to grow big, tend to get bureaucratized. When employees begin to believe that the institutions exist for them, rather than that they exist for the purpose and ideals for which the institution was built, then clearly that institution has mutated into a bureaucracy. The revolutionary in me would demand that such an institution be broken down unabashedly, and built again anew.”
Leadership, Strategy

Lunch with BS: Vineet Nayar

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“Nayar says all revolutions, social and in business, come out of dissatisfaction. “Gandhi, for instance, spent a humongous amount of time convincing people why they should be unhappy with the British Raj. So, the first step towards any change is to understand that the status quo is not good enough, creating positive dissatisfaction as I call it.” Creating dissatisfaction is not enough, you have to show a vision for tomorrow, too, and connect the dots of strategy, according to Nayar.

Well said, but can an organisation stay in a state of perennial unhappiness? Isn’t there a danger of rocking the boat too hard? “Suppose you’re standing on the ledge of a building on fire and you know the only way out is to jump, but you also have a 100 colleagues standing along with you. How do you convince them to jump? And you have only 30 seconds to do it. You cannot say the solution for us is to jump because you have not created the threat with the status quo. You have to say I assure you if we keep standing here we’ll die. So, in companies when leaders want change, they have to first reflect and then direct the conversation to what would happen if they maintain the status quo.”

More at Business Standard