Management gems from Richard Branson

Richard Branson: British Billionaire Entrepreneur, whatever he does becomes news.

Click here to find out his own words.

Courtesy: www.rediff.com

Peter Drucker's mantras for success

Peter Drucker: Management consultant and writer. His thoughts are becoming more and more popular in this turbulent times.

Click here to read some really nice quotes by him.

Courtesy: www.rediff.com

Commencement address by Steve Jobs

This is from http://news-service.stanford.edu/news/2005/june15/jobs-061505.html

This is the text of the Commencement address by Steve Jobs, CEO of Apple Computer and of Pixar Animation Studios, delivered on June 12, 2005.

I am honored to be with you today at your commencement from one of the finest universities in the world. I never graduated from college. Truth be told, this is the closest I've ever gotten to a college graduation. Today I want to tell you three stories from my life. That's it. No big deal. Just three stories.

The first story is about connecting the dots.

I dropped out of Reed College after the first 6 months, but then stayed around as a drop-in for another 18 months or so before I really quit. So why did I drop out?

It started before I was born. My biological mother was a young, unwed college graduate student, and she decided to put me up for adoption. She felt very strongly that I should be adopted by college graduates, so everything was all set for me to be adopted at birth by a lawyer and his wife. Except that when I popped out they decided at the last minute that they really wanted a girl. So my parents, who were on a waiting list, got a call in the middle of the night asking: "We have an unexpected baby boy; do you want him?" They said: "Of course." My biological mother later found out that my mother had never graduated from college and that my father had never graduated from high school. She refused to sign the final adoption papers. She only relented a few months later when my parents promised that I would someday go to college.

And 17 years later I did go to college. But I naively chose a college that was almost as expensive as Stanford, and all of my working-class parents' savings were being spent on my college tuition. After six months, I couldn't see the value in it. I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life and no idea how college was going to help me figure it out. And here I was spending all of the money my parents had saved their entire life. So I decided to drop out and trust that it would all work out OK. It was pretty scary at the time, but looking back it was one of the best decisions I ever made. The minute I dropped out I could stop taking the required classes that didn't interest me, and begin dropping in on the ones that looked interesting.

It wasn't all romantic. I didn't have a dorm room, so I slept on the floor in friends' rooms, I returned coke bottles for the 5¢ deposits to buy food with, and I would walk the 7 miles across town every Sunday night to get one good meal a week at the Hare Krishna temple. I loved it. And much of what I stumbled into by following my curiosity and intuition turned out to be priceless later on. Let me give you one example:

Reed College at that time offered perhaps the best calligraphy instruction in the country. Throughout the campus every poster, every label on every drawer, was beautifully hand calligraphed. Because I had dropped out and didn't have to take the normal classes, I decided to take a calligraphy class to learn how to do this. I learned about serif and san serif typefaces, about varying the amount of space between different letter combinations, about what makes great typography great. It was beautiful, historical, artistically subtle in a way that science can't capture, and I found it fascinating.

None of this had even a hope of any practical application in my life. But ten years later, when we were designing the first Macintosh computer, it all came back to me. And we designed it all into the Mac. It was the first computer with beautiful typography. If I had never dropped in on that single course in college, the Mac would have never had multiple typefaces or proportionally spaced fonts. And since Windows just copied the Mac, its likely that no personal computer would have them. If I had never dropped out, I would have never dropped in on this calligraphy class, and personal computers might not have the wonderful typography that they do. Of course it was impossible to connect the dots looking forward when I was in college. But it was very, very clear looking backwards ten years later.

Again, you can't connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something — your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life.

My second story is about love and loss.

I was lucky — I found what I loved to do early in life. Woz and I started Apple in my parents garage when I was 20. We worked hard, and in 10 years Apple had grown from just the two of us in a garage into a $2 billion company with over 4000 employees. We had just released our finest creation — the Macintosh — a year earlier, and I had just turned 30. And then I got fired. How can you get fired from a company you started? Well, as Apple grew we hired someone who I thought was very talented to run the company with me, and for the first year or so things went well. But then our visions of the future began to diverge and eventually we had a falling out. When we did, our Board of Directors sided with him. So at 30 I was out. And very publicly out. What had been the focus of my entire adult life was gone, and it was devastating.

I really didn't know what to do for a few months. I felt that I had let the previous generation of entrepreneurs down - that I had dropped the baton as it was being passed to me. I met with David Packard and Bob Noyce and tried to apologize for screwing up so badly. I was a very public failure, and I even thought about running away from the valley. But something slowly began to dawn on me — I still loved what I did. The turn of events at Apple had not changed that one bit. I had been rejected, but I was still in love. And so I decided to start over.

I didn't see it then, but it turned out that getting fired from Apple was the best thing that could have ever happened to me. The heaviness of being successful was replaced by the lightness of being a beginner again, less sure about everything. It freed me to enter one of the most creative periods of my life.

During the next five years, I started a company named NeXT, another company named Pixar, and fell in love with an amazing woman who would become my wife. Pixar went on to create the worlds first computer animated feature film, Toy Story, and is now the most successful animation studio in the world. In a remarkable turn of events, Apple bought NeXT, I returned to Apple, and the technology we developed at NeXT is at the heart of Apple's current renaissance. And Laurene and I have a wonderful family together.

I'm pretty sure none of this would have happened if I hadn't been fired from Apple. It was awful tasting medicine, but I guess the patient needed it. Sometimes life hits you in the head with a brick. Don't lose faith. I'm convinced that the only thing that kept me going was that I loved what I did. You've got to find what you love. And that is as true for your work as it is for your lovers. Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven't found it yet, keep looking. Don't settle. As with all matters of the heart, you'll know when you find it. And, like any great relationship, it just gets better and better as the years roll on. So keep looking until you find it. Don't settle.

My third story is about death.

When I was 17, I read a quote that went something like: "If you live each day as if it was your last, someday you'll most certainly be right." It made an impression on me, and since then, for the past 33 years, I have looked in the mirror every morning and asked myself: "If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?" And whenever the answer has been "No" for too many days in a row, I know I need to change something.

Remembering that I'll be dead soon is the most important tool I've ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything — all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure - these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart.

About a year ago I was diagnosed with cancer. I had a scan at 7:30 in the morning, and it clearly showed a tumor on my pancreas. I didn't even know what a pancreas was. The doctors told me this was almost certainly a type of cancer that is incurable, and that I should expect to live no longer than three to six months. My doctor advised me to go home and get my affairs in order, which is doctor's code for prepare to die. It means to try to tell your kids everything you thought you'd have the next 10 years to tell them in just a few months. It means to make sure everything is buttoned up so that it will be as easy as possible for your family. It means to say your goodbyes.

I lived with that diagnosis all day. Later that evening I had a biopsy, where they stuck an endoscope down my throat, through my stomach and into my intestines, put a needle into my pancreas and got a few cells from the tumor. I was sedated, but my wife, who was there, told me that when they viewed the cells under a microscope the doctors started crying because it turned out to be a very rare form of pancreatic cancer that is curable with surgery. I had the surgery and I'm fine now.

This was the closest I've been to facing death, and I hope its the closest I get for a few more decades. Having lived through it, I can now say this to you with a bit more certainty than when death was a useful but purely intellectual concept:

No one wants to die. Even people who want to go to heaven don't want to die to get there. And yet death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it. And that is as it should be, because Death is very likely the single best invention of Life. It is Life's change agent. It clears out the old to make way for the new. Right now the new is you, but someday not too long from now, you will gradually become the old and be cleared away. Sorry to be so dramatic, but it is quite true.

Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life. Don't be trapped by dogma — which is living with the results of other people's thinking. Don't let the noise of others' opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.

When I was young, there was an amazing publication called The Whole Earth Catalog, which was one of the bibles of my generation. It was created by a fellow named Stewart Brand not far from here in Menlo Park, and he brought it to life with his poetic touch. This was in the late 1960's, before personal computers and desktop publishing, so it was all made with typewriters, scissors, and polaroid cameras. It was sort of like Google in paperback form, 35 years before Google came along: it was idealistic, and overflowing with neat tools and great notions.

Stewart and his team put out several issues of The Whole Earth Catalog, and then when it had run its course, they put out a final issue. It was the mid-1970s, and I was your age. On the back cover of their final issue was a photograph of an early morning country road, the kind you might find yourself hitchhiking on if you were so adventurous. Beneath it were the words: "Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish." It was their farewell message as they signed off. Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish. And I have always wished that for myself. And now, as you graduate to begin anew, I wish that for you.

Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish.

Thank you all very much.

Ratan Tata's words of inspiration

This is from http://www.rediff.com/money/2008/aug/26sli1.htm

Ratan Naval Tata has been called many things. Quiet. Reticent. Humble. A businessman par excellence. Tenacious. And a tiger, when pushed to the wall.

As we all witnessed when it looked like the controversy about Singur, where the Tata Nano was to be manufactured, looked like escalating instead of dying down.

The 70-year-old roared, "If people say that that we will protect our investments irrespective of anything then they are wrong. I will not bring in my employees to Singur if there is threat of them being beaten up. Tata will do whatever necessary to protect its employees."

It was a statement, not a threat -- a statement that Ratan Tata will not hesitate to execute.

Here are some more inspirational words of wisdom from a titan of India's business world.

· On courage: I am, unfortunately, a person who has often said: You put a gun to my head and pull the trigger or take the gun away, I won't move my head.

· On successful people: I admire people who are very successful. But if that success has been achieved through too much ruthlessness, then I may admire that person, but I can't respect him.

· On leadership: It is easy to become a number one player, but it is difficult to remain number one. So, we will have to fight with a view to remain number one.

· On Nano: This project (the Nano) has proven to everyone that if you really set yourself to doing something, you actually can do it.

· On the need to think big: We have been. . . thinking small. And if we look around us, countries like China have grown so much by thinking big. I would urge that we all, in the coming years, think big, think of doing things not in small increments, not in small deltas, but seemingly impossible things. But nothing is impossible if you really set out to do so. And we act boldly. Because it is this thinking big and acting boldly that will move India up in a manner different from where it is today.

· On risk: Risk is a necessary part of business philosophy. You can be risk-averse and take no risks, in which case you will have a certain trajectory in terms of your growth. Or you can, while being prudent, take greater risk in order to grow faster.

· On risk: I view risk as an ability to be where no one has been before. I view risk to be an issue of thinking big, something we did not do previously. We did everything in small increments so we always lagged behind. But the crucial question is: can we venture putting a man on the moon or risk billions of rupees on a really way-out, advanced project in, say, superconductors? Do you restrict your risk to something close to your heart?

· On today's environment: I think it's a tougher environment from what it was about 15 years ago. The demands are far greater, many of the sectors are moving faster, and technology change is quicker. The luxury of having time to make decisions no longer exists. Decisions need to be taken faster and, unlike in the past, they have to be based on more on information and less on intuition. The impact of wrong decisions is greater today. Furthermore, people today are, if I might say so, more opportunistic, materialistic and rebellious. So you are managing a different type of environment: less protected, less feudal, and more demanding in terms of speed, in terms of technology.

· On employees: The way to hold employees today is to make their work and their day-to-day activities in the company exciting enough for them to stay. Not everyone will stay, but I think if we can empower more people and are willing to pass on the responsibility for that, and if people are satisfied and motivated, there's less chance of them wanting to leave and go to a competitor.

· On low-cost products: It should not be, cannot be, that low-cost products come to mean inferior or sub-standard products and services; definitely not. The aim is to create products for that larger segment -- good and robust products that we are able to produce innovatively and get to the marketplace at lower costs.

· On customers: We should be treating the customer in the same way that we would want to be treated as customers.

· On feedback: Market feedback is very important, but it has to be stripped of its colour. You have to be able to strip away the vested interest or the bias that sometimes comes in. You have to view it objectively, not defensively.

· On business:Business, as I have seen it, places one great demand on you: it needs you to self-impose a framework of ethics, values, fairness and objectivity on yourself at all times. It is easy not to do this; you cannot impose it on yourself forcibly because it has to become an integral part of you.

· On innovation:Barriers to innovation are usually in the mind.

· On customers:There was a need to re-focus and look at how your customer sees you, and to pay more attention to what the customer wants rather than what you think she wants. Are you really the most cost effective producer? Are you aggressive enough to grab marketshare? Will you endeavour to dip your toe in the water and do something that you haven't done before?

· On innovation:If you are a little innovative or a little bit of a gambler, and you make a product which is either ahead of its time or has an evolutionary design, or has features that work into a person's perception, then you have an acceptable product.

· On questioning:I kept saying, please question the unquestionable. I tried to tell our younger managers just don't accept something that was done in the past, don't accept something as a holy cow. . . go question it. That was less of a problem than getting our senior managers not to tell the younger managers, 'Look young man, don't question me.'

· On speed:Today, the world does not afford you to luxury of being a slow mover. Nor are there any holy cows. We have to be aggressive, be far-sighted enough to look into the future and we also have to be pragmatic enough to say that if we really are not in a leadership position in a particular business, we should look at exiting that business.

· On retirement: I do not want to go out on a wheelchair. You achieved something, it is successful, it's a nice time to leave because you may not have the luxury of being able to do that (later). And you don't want ever to have a situation when somebody sort of whispers, when is he going to leave?. . . You don't want to fade away by hanging in there too long. You would love to go on the back of something that is exciting or a great achievement.

· On icons:The kind of company one would want to emulate is one where products and technology are at the leading edge, dealings with customers are very fair, services are of a high order, and business ethics are transparent and straightforward. A less tangible issue involves the work environment, which should not be one where you are stressed and driven to the point of being drugged.

· On introspection:All companies need to keep looking at their business definition and, possibly from time to time, to see if that definition needs to be redefined. If you take the example of Tata Steel, they could say that they are a steel company and find themselves in a shrinking market where steel is under threat of being replaced by some other material. The question is: what do we call ourselves? One view was that steel is a material, so can we be a materials company? We don't have to be in all materials, but can we be in composites, can we be in plastics, laminates, etc? The automotive business needs to think similarly, and so does the chemicals business. We have to keep looking at ourselves and asking: what is our business?

· On customer retention:Very often it is said about several companies that they take a lot of pains to make a sale. However, once they get the order, customers cannot even get anyone to answer their calls. I would like the customer to say that the next product he buys will also be a Tata product because of everything that he experienced. That is really

what customer retention is about.

· On innovation: My outlook on R&D is that it is an absolutely necessary thing for us to do. And I don't think we are doing enough. The point is not just spending money; it's how many patents you file, your innovation rate and your product development. . . If today you were to give everybody a mandate that they can spend 3 per cent of their revenue on R&D, assuming they can spare the money, I don't think many companies would know the what, where and how of spending that kind of money, other than to put up an R&D place and buy lots of equipment.

· On customer relationship: Where we have direct dealings with our customers, it is important that, at the middle-management levels, they are shown courtesy, dealt with fairly, and made to feel that they are receiving the attention they deserve. The interface with the customer should be a seamless one.

· On risk: There have been occasions where I have been a risk-taker. Perhaps more than some, and less so than certain others. It is a question of where you view that from. I have never been a real gambler in the sense, that some successful businessmen have been. . .

· On ethics: What worries me is that the threshold of acceptability or the line between acceptability and non-acceptability in terms of values, business ethics, etc, is blurring.

· On success: I would not consider myself to have been tremendously successful or as having failed tremendously. I would say I have been moderately successful because there have been changes.

· On survival: The strong live and the weak die. There is some bloodshed, and out of it emerges a much leaner industry, which tends to survive.

· On Tata Group: At Tatas, we believe that if we are not among the top three in an industry, we should look seriously at what it would take to become one of the top three players -- or think about exiting the industry.

· On Tata Group: We were a group that would not work in a particular way for many years and we weren't fully sensitive to the changing environment around us. So anything that was new, we felt it was better to be where we were, tested and tried, I think, that's changed.

· On Tata Group: Without being critical, it is true that many of our companies had their heads in the sand and were resting on past glories. In the course of time, the view gained ground that we were less nimble than others, more resistant to change and more set in our ways. What we needed to do, of course, was benchmark ourselves against the best, get away from doing things the way we were, and put certain processes in place.

· On Tata Group: We should ease out of certain sectors, but do it in a dignified way that protects our employees and all our stakeholders. We should dispassionately look at exiting certain sectors, businesses or companies and embrace new opportunities when they come. It is possible that this strategy may result in a drop in earnings, because when you get into an industry that is still in its gestation period your enterprise is going to suck out cash.

· On innovation: Like many of our counterparts and businesses we are not too innovative. That's fine in the Indian context, but we need to move a lot faster and expend more funds on innovation and technology upgrading in our companies than we are doing.

· On new industries: Leapfrogging into new areas did not seem a bad idea because those are areas which nine out of ten people would tend to ignore. And, in all likelihood the government might even encourage such a step. So I decided to explore the frontier industries.

· On challenges: If there are challenges thrown across and those challenges are difficult then some interesting, innovative solutions will come. If you don't have those challenges then, I think, the tendency is go on to say that whatever will happen, will take place in small deltas.

· On planning: We never really plan big. We are not in keeping with what is happening around us. When you go to other countries around us you see it visibly that we are just back in time. And yet we have so much to offer.

· On commitment: We have to clamp down on deviations from commitments. For ensuring greater commitment to performance, we also need to have a system which rewards performers and punishes those who don't perform.

· On risk: We have is to be less risk-averse. We have been a very conservative house and we have been applauded for our conservatism but today we need to take more risk. We don't need to be flamboyant or cavalier but we need to be less conservative than we have been.

· On the future: One hundred years from now, I expect the Tatas to be much bigger than it is now. More importantly, I hope the Group comes to be regarded as being the best in India. . . best in the manner in which we operate, best in the products we deliver, and best in our value systems and ethics. Having said that, I hope that a hundred years from now we will spread our wings far beyond India.

· On resistance: You will probably find the resistance (to change) more from those who haven't been doing well.

· On change: Change is seen to be needed, and fast, so long as it does not affect me. We want to see change but if you suddenly tell me that I am the company that has to go, or has to be cut in half, or three of my businesses have to be hived off, then all of a sudden, the very person who made the noise about change is now saying, 'You don't have to do this.'

· On resistance: We do have resistance to some of the changes, it is easier not to do, but we have to change in order to be in keeping with the changing times. Our inability to do that effectively will be one major threat.

· On globalisation: Global companies are differentiated by their strong global position, global assets, capabilities, brands and their relative resilience to shocks and even to the business cycle.

· On globalisation: A company does not become global by simply participating in a certain number of geographic markets. In that sense, it is not a sum of parts. It is its ability to become globally competitive, leverage global opportunities and have the required global capabilities that make it global.

· On globalisation: The objective of globalisation is to move towards becoming globally competitive and to expand your market. The globalisation strategy itself could be asset-based, capability-based or opportunity-based. It also includes global employment. It implies an organisation which employs people with no national barriers.

· On CEOs: The CEO has to be compassionate, fair, self-critical and humble, and yet have the tremendous drive it takes to make his company the best there is.

· On CEOs: It gets a bit dangerous when the CEO has no system and his personality drives the organisation, which he runs like his personal fiefdom. In these circumstances its actually the CEO who is the role model and not the company.

· On the ideal CEO: An ideal CEO is not found everywhere. One way to do this is to benchmark him against his targets and against the best performers in his industry, and hope that this does not demoralise him, but, rather, that it makes him strive to do better.

· On CEOs: There are many competent professionals in the country who have not been given the chance to operate at CEO levels. If you look around, you see companies run professionally by people who 15 years ago were virtually unknown. Therefore, though there are a lot of managers around, the question is whether you are willing to take a chance with someone you don't know well.

· On CEOs: When I came on to the scene, I was very young in comparison to other CEOs in the group, a number of whom were in their 70s and a couple even in their 80s. I saw ageing CEOs who didn't leave their offices, seldom interacted with people, never visited the plants and certainly didn't visit the market place. I felt that it was a very great weakness that we had. So, despite some turbulence, we reintroduced our retirement age and put that into force.

· On competition: Foreign investment adds a sense of competition; we should see this as a wake-up call to modernise and upgrade. Companies that don't will undoubtedly die.

· On competition: This fear of competition is something that one needs to break, because it is the single largest element that stands between the true potential of what India can give to the world and where it is today. It's a mistaken feeling that competition will kill Indian industry. In fact it will make Indian industry much more successful and much more innovative in terms of how it deals with its problems.

· On competition: It's only when you are in a competitive field that you realise competition is the greatest and most exhilarating force you can face as you move forward. If you succeed, there is nothing that pleases you more when you go home at night than to know that you have succeeded against your competitor in a fair and just manner, rather than through devious and underhand means.

· On protectionism: We need to move away from the era of protectionism to an era of competitiveness -- and by that I mean global competitiveness, not just competitiveness within the country.

· On responsibility: Industry needs to be concerned with stopping the flow of citizens to the urban areas and creating livelihoods in the rural areas for them. They need to understand that they have a responsibility that goes beyond just making their products and producing a good bottom line. They have a responsibility that covers the 60-odd per cent of the population that is not industrialised and that is in the rural community.

· On corporate duty: In a country like India, in which the government perhaps has done less in the area of creating infrastructure and is now in the process of catching up, I think industry has to take a key role in moving in this direction as we progress.

· On India: I am proud of my country. But we need to unite to make a unified India, free of communalism and casteism. We need to build India into a land of equal opportunity for all. We can be a truly great nation if we set our sights high and deliver to the people the fruits of continued growth, prosperity and equal opportunity.

· On trust: We do very little amongst ourselves. We trust each other little. Unless we become India Incorporated we may not succeed in becoming a global entity.

· On change: My feeling is that in a developing country such as India we should, perhaps, be more active in shedding some of the old baggage and embracing new opportunities. That's easier said than done, because of people, emotions and an unwillingness to change, or be confronted with the question: why me?

· On the vision for India: The vision I have for India in the next decade is of a nation with vastly improved connectivity in communications providing education, personal interaction, e-commerce, and telephony contact for the overwhelming mass of its people. I see our country being connected through major highway networks, thus shrinking the time required to move goods to the marketplace. I see our consumers exercising an unprecedented degree of choice, with the Indian marketplace becoming a vibrantly competitive arena, fully integrated with the world. Equally, I foresee that the ambitions of the Indian entrepreneur will not be confined to domestic boundaries and our immensely valuable human capital will leave its mark in the global marketplace.

· On employment: We have to create more jobs, we have to create levels of education, provide basic necessities, drinking water etc. These are the tasks ahead of us. I think that there should be a commitment that this needs to be done, not just statements; but we need to be on the ground and make this happen. Otherwise, we are a tremendous country, with great talent, great raw materials and natural resources; we can be a very successful country.

· On India: The country is now universally recognised as a nation on the move and takes its place amongst the successful economies in the region. The future potential is enormous but the country's destiny is in our hands. The time has come to move from small increments to bold, large initiatives. The time has come to stretch the envelope and set goals which were earlier not seen to be possible. The time has come for performance to be measured and for allocated funds of the government to reach the people for whom they were intended.

· On problems: There are solutions for most problems. The barriers and roadblocks that we face are usually of our own making and these can only be demolished by having the determination to find a solution, even contrary to the conventional wisdom that prevails around us, by breaking tradition.

· To students: I would hope that you would go in to the world -- whichever area you are in -- first and foremost, driven by a sense of integrity. . . I would hope that you also have a sense of social responsibility, so that you give back to the people and build the country on the basis of your skills.

· On leadership: I would hope that most of you will in fact strive for leadership in a principled manner with values, because that would be the foundation that this country needs to have if it is to take its place in the world.

· To management graduates: Most of you I imagine will be deeply engrossed in your careers and I hope that each of you will have a tremendously exhilarating and rewarding life in the business community, but it is not business alone, I would feel that a class like yours would go into the world in India or elsewhere. That you would leave your mark not only amongst your colleagues in industry, but for future generations who would look back on you and look to you at the contribution you have made that lives on after you.

· To graduates: I would hope that each of you would lead by example and that each of you would live by the principles that you espouse. . .That you will have a sense of vision, because one of the things that this country has had has been an inability to look into the future, our business leaders have sometimes been followers rather than leaders.

· On humility: I would hope that as people who might take an elite position, would be considered amongst the elite in the country, you will always display humility in the manner in which you deal with your fellowmen, both in your company and in the country and you will continue to have passion in the areas in which you will work.

· On doubt: On many, many occasions you would have doubts on whether what you are pursuing is the right thing. But if you do believe in what you are trying to do and you pursue it and stay with it in a determined manner, I am quite sure you will succeed.

9 great management lessons from Dhirubhai Ambani

This article explains great management lessons from none other than Dhirubhai Ambani and is from http://www.rediff.com/money/2008/aug/18slde1.htm

Let’s understand Dhirubhai’sm and most important one is Orbit Theory of him. Read on to know more.

Dhirubhai Ambani, founder of the Reliance Industries (biggest private sector company of India), was no ordinary leader. He was a man who gave management a whole new "ism".

There is a new "ism" that I've been meaning to add to the vast world of words for quite a while now. Because, without exaggeration, it's a word for which no synonym can do full justice: "Dhirubhaism".

Inspired by the truly phenomenal Dhirubhai H Ambani, it denotes a characteristic, tendency or syndrome as demonstrated by its inspirer. Dhirubhai, on his part, had he been around, would have laughed heartily and declared, "Small men like me don't inspire big words!"

There you have it - now that is a classic Dhirubhaism, the tendency to disregard one's own invaluable contribution to society as significant.

I'm sure everyone who knew Dhirubhai well will have his or her own little anecdote that illustrates his unique personality. He was a person whose heart and head both worked at peak efficiency levels, all the time. And that resulted in a truly unique and remarkable work philosophy, which is what I would like to define as Dhirubhaism.

Let me explain this new "ism" with a few examples from my own experiences of working with him.

Dhirubhaism No 1: Roll up your sleeves and help.

You and your team share the same DNA.

Reliance, during Vimal's heady days had organized a fashion show at the Convention Hall, at Ashoka Hotel in New Delhi.

As usual, every seat in the hall was taken, and there were an equal number of impatient guests outside, waiting to be seated. I was of course completely besieged, trying to handle the ensuing confusion, chaos and protests, when to my amazement and relief, I saw Dhirubhai at the door trying to pacify the guests.

Dhirubhai at that time was already a name to reckon with and a VIP himself, but that did not stop him from rolling up his sleeves and diving in to rescue a situation that had gone out of control. Most bosses in his place would have driven up in their swank cars at the last moment and given the manager a piece of their minds. Not Dhirubhai.

When things went wrong, he was the first person to sense that the circumstances would have been beyond his team's control, rather than it being a slip on their part, as he trusted their capabilities implicitly. His first instinct was always to join his men in putting out the fire and not crucifying them for it. Sounds too good a boss to be true, doesn't he? But then, that was Dhirubhai.

Dhirubhaism No 2: Be a safety net for your team.

There used to be a time when our agency Mudra was the target of some extremely vicious propaganda by our peers, when on an almost daily basis my business ethics were put on trial. I, on my part, putting on a brave front, never raised this subject during any of my meetings with Dhirubhai.

But one day, during a particularly nasty spell, he gently asked me if I needed any help in combating it. That did it. That was all the help that I needed. Overwhelmed by his concern and compassion, I told him I could cope, but the knowledge that he knew and cared for what I was going through, and that he was there for me if I ever needed him, worked wonders for my confidence.

I went back a much taller man fully armed to face whatever came my way. By letting us know that he was always aware of the trials we underwent and that he was by our side through it all, he gave us the courage we never knew we had.

Dhirubhaism No 3: The silent benefactor.

This was another of his remarkable traits. When he helped someone, he never ever breathed a word about it to anyone else. There have been none among us who haven't known his kindness, yet he never went around broadcasting it.

He never used charity as a platform to gain publicity. Sometimes, he would even go to the extent of not letting the recipient know who the donor was. Such was the extent of his generosity. "Expect the unexpected" just might have been coined for him.

Dhirubhaism No 4: Dream big, but dream with your eyes open.

His phenomenal achievement showed India that limitations were only in the mind. And that nothing was truly unattainable for those who dreamed big.

Whenever I tried to point out to him that a task seemed too big to be accomplished, he would reply: "No is no answer!" Not only did he dream big, he taught all of us to do so too. His one-line brief to me when we began Mudra was: "Make Vimal's advertising the benchmark for fashion advertising in the country."

At that time, we were just a tiny, fledgling agency, tucked away in Ahmedabad, struggling to put a team in place. When we presented the seemingly insurmountable to him, his favourite response was always: "It's difficult but not impossible!" And he was right. We did go on to achieve the impossible.

Both in its size and scope Vimal's fashion shows were unprecedented in the country. Grand showroom openings, stunning experiments in print and poster work all combined to give the brand a truly benchmark image. But way back in 1980, no one would have believed it could have ever been possible. Except Dhirubhai.

But though he dreamed big, he was able to clearly distinguish between perception and reality and his favourite phrase "dream with your eyes open" underlined this.

He never let preset norms govern his vision, yet he worked night and day familiarizing himself with every little nitty-gritty that constituted his dreams constantly sifting the wheat from the chaff. This is how, as he put it, even though he dreamed, none of his dreams turned into nightmares. And this is what gave him the courage to move from one orbit to the next despite tremendous odds.

Dhirubhai was indeed a man of many parts, as is evident. I am sure there are many people who display some of the traits mentioned above, in their working styles as well, but Dhirubhai was one of those rare people who demonstrated all of them, all the time.

5. Dhirubhaism: Leave the professional alone!

Much as people would like to believe, most owners (even managers and clients), though eager to hire the best professionals in the field, do so and then use them as extensions of their own personality. Every time I come across this, which is much too often, I am reminded of how Dhirubhai's management techniques used to be (and still remain) so refreshingly different.

For instance, way back in the late 1970s when we decided to open an agency of our own, he asked me to name it. I carried a short list of three names, two Westernised and one Indian. It was a very different world back then. Everything Anglicised was considered "upmarket."

There were hardly any agencies with Indian names barring my own ex-agency Shilpi and a few others like Ulka and Sistas. He looked at the list and asked me what my choice was. I said "Mudra": it was the only name that suited my personality. And the spirit of the agency that I was to head.

I was very Indian and an Anglicised name on my visiting card would seem pretentious and contrived. No further questions were asked. No suggestions offered, just a plain and simple "Go ahead and do it." That was just the beginning.

He continued to give me total freedom -- no supervision, no policing -- in all my decisions thereafter. In fact, the only direction that he gave me, just once, was this: "Produce your best."

His utter trust in me was what pushed me to never, ever let him down. I guess the simplest strategies are often the hardest to adopt. That was the secret of the Dhirubhai legend. It was not out of a book. It was a skillful blend of head and heart.

6. Dhirubhaism: Change your orbit, constantly!

To understand this statement, let me explain Dhirubhai's "orbit theory."

He would often explain that we are all born into an orbit. It is up to us to progress to the next. We could choose to live and die in the orbit that we are born in. But that would be a criminal waste of potential. When we push ourselves into the next orbit, we benefit not only ourselves but everyone connected with us.

Take India's push for development. There was once a time our country's growth rate was just 4 per cent, sarcastically referred to as the "Hindu growth rate." Look at us today, galloping along at a healthy 7-8 per cent.

This is no miracle. It is the product of a handful of determined orbit changers like Dhirubhai, all of whose efforts have benefited a larger sphere in their respective fields.

In a small way, I too have experienced the thrill of changing orbits with Mudra. In the 1980s, we leapt from the orbit of a small Ahmedabad ad agency to become the country's third largest ad agency -- in just under a decade.

However, when you change orbits, you will create friction. The good news is that your enemies from your previous orbit will never be able to reach you in your new one. By the time resentment builds up in your new orbit, you should move to the next level. And so on.

Changing orbits is the key to our progress as a nation.

7. The arm-around-the-shoulder leader

I have never seen any other empire builder nor the CEO of any big organisation do this (why, I never adopted this myself!).

It was Dhirubhai's very own signature style. Whenever I went to meet him and if on that day, all the time that he could spare me was a short walk up to his car, he would instantly put his arm around me and proceed to discuss the issues at hand as we walked.

With that one simple gesture, he managed to achieve many things. I was put at ease instantaneously. I was made to feel like an equal who was loved and important enough to be considered close to him. And I would walk away from that meeting feeling so good about myself and the work I was doing!

This tendency that he had, to draw people towards him, manifested itself in countless ways. This was just one of them. He would never, ever exude an air of aloofness and exclusivity. He was always inviting people into sharing their thoughts and ideas, rather than shutting them out.

On hindsight I think, it must have required phenomenal generosity of spirit to be that inclusive. Yes, this was one of the things that was uniquely Dhirubhai -- that warm arm around my shoulder that did much more than words in letting me know that I belonged, that I had his trust, and that I had him on my side!

8. The Dhirubhai theory of Supply creating Demand

He was not an MBA. Nor an economist. But yet he took traditional market theory and stood it on its head. And succeeded.

Yes, at a time when everyone in India would build capacities only after a careful study of market expectations, he went full steam ahead and created giants of manufacturing plants with unbelievable capacites. (Initial cap of Reliance Patalganga was 10,000 tonnes of PFY way back in 1980, while the market in India for it was approx. 6000 tonnes).

No doubt his instinct was backed by years and years of reading, studying market trends, careful listening and his own honed capacity to forecast, but yet despite all this preparation, it required undeniable guts to pioneer such a revolutionary move.

The consequence was that the market blossomed to absorb supply, the consumer benefited with prices crashing down, the players increased and our economic landscape changed for the better. The Patalganga plant was in no time humming at maximum capacity and as a result of the plant's economies of scale, Dhirubhai's conversion cost of the yarn in 1994 came down to 18 cents per pound, as compared to Western Europe's 34 cents, North America's 29 cents and the Far East's 23 cents and Reliance was exporting the yarn back to the US!

A more recent example was that of Mukesh Ambani taking this vision forward with Reliance Infocomm (which is now handled by Anil Ambani). In India's mobile telephony timeline there will always be a very clear 'before Infocomm and after Infocomm' segmentation. The numbers say it all. In Jan 2003, the mobile subscriber base was 13 million, about 16 months later, shortly after the launch, it had reached 30 million.

In March 2006, it has touched 90 million ! Yes, this was yet another unusual skill of Dhirubhai's -- his uncanny knack of knowing exactly how the market is going to behave.

9. Money is not a product by itself, it is a by-product, so don't chase it

This was a belief by which Dhirubhai lived all his life. For instance when he briefed me about setting up Mudra, his instruction was clear: 'Produce the best textile advertising in the country,' he said.

He did not breathe a word about profits, nor about becoming the richest ad agency in the country. Great advertising was the goal that he set for me. A by-product is something that you don't set out to produce. It is the spin off when you create something larger.

When you turn logs into lumber, sawdust is your by-product and a pretty lucrative one it can be too! It is a very simple analogy but extremely effective in driving the point home. Work toward a goal beyond your bank balance.

Success in attaining that goal will eventually ring in the cash. For instance, if you work towards creating a name for yourself and earning a good reputation, then money is a logical outcome.

People will pay for your product or service if it is good. But if you get your priorities slightly mixed up, not only will the money you make remain just a quick buck it would in all likelihood blacklist you for good. Sounds too simplistic for belief? Well, look around you and you will know exactly how true it is.

Source Courtesy: www.rediff.com

Keep the Spark - Chetan Bhagat

This is from:http://www.chetanbhagat.com/blog/general/sparks

 

Inaugural Speech for the new batch at the Symbiosis BBA program 2008 by Chetan Bhagat.

Good Morning everyone and thank you for giving me this chance to speak to you. This day is about you. You, who have come to this college, leaving the comfort of your homes (or in some cases discomfort), to become something in your life. I am sure you are excited. There are few days in human life when one is truly elated. The first day in college is one of them. When you were getting ready today, you felt a tingling in your stomach. What would the auditorium be like, what would the teachers be like, who are my new classmates - there is so much to be curious about. I call this excitement, the spark within you that makes you feel truly alive today. Today I am going to talk about keeping the spark shining. Or to put it another way, how to be happy most, if not all the time. 

Where do these sparks start? I think we are born with them. My 3-year old twin boys have a million sparks. A little Spiderman toy can make them jump on the bed. They get thrills from creaky swings in the park. A story from daddy gets them excited. They do a daily countdown for birthday party – several months in advance – just for the day they will cut their own birthday cake. 

I see students like you, and I still see some sparks. But when I see older people, the spark is difficult to find. That means as we age, the spark fades. People whose spark has faded too much are dull, dejected, aimless and bitter. Remember Kareena in the first half of Jab We Met vs the second half? That is what happens when the spark is lost. So how to save the spark? 

Imagine the spark to be a lamp's flame. The first aspect is nurturing - to give your spark the fuel, continuously. The second is to guard against storms. 

To nurture, always have goals. It is human nature to strive, improve and achieve full potential. In fact, that is success. It is what is possible for you. It isn't any external measure - a certain cost to company pay package, a particular car or house. 

Most of us are from middle class families. To us, having material landmarks is success and rightly so. When you have grown up where money constraints force everyday choices, financial freedom is a big achievement. But it isn't the purpose of life. If that was the case, Mr. Ambani would not show up for work. Shah Rukh Khan would stay at home and not dance anymore. Steve Jobs won't be working hard to make a better iPhone, as he sold Pixar for billions of dollars already. Why do they do it? What makes them come to work everyday? They do it because it makes them happy. They do it because it makes them feel alive. Just getting better from current levels feels good. If you study hard, you can improve your rank. If you make an effort to interact with people, you will do better in interviews. If you practice, your cricket will get better. You may also know that you cannot become Tendulkar, yet. But you can get to the next level. Striving for that next level is important. 

Nature designed with a random set of genes and circumstances in which we were born. To be happy, we have to accept it and make the most of nature's design. Are you? Goals will help you do that. 

I must add, don't just have career or academic goals. Set goals to give you a balanced, successful life. I use the word balanced before successful. Balanced means ensuring your health, relationships, mental peace are all in good order. 

There is no point of getting a promotion on the day of your breakup. There is no fun in driving a car if your back hurts. Shopping is not enjoyable if your mind is full of tensions. 

You must have read some quotes - Life is a tough race, it is a marathon or whatever. No, from what I have seen so far, life is one of those races in nursery school, where you have to run with a marble in a spoon kept in your mouth. If the marble falls, there is no point coming first. Same with life, where health and relationships are the marble. Your striving is only worth it if there is harmony in your life. Else, you may achieve the success, but this spark, this feeling of being excited and alive, will start to die. 

One last thing about nurturing the spark - don't take life seriously. One of my yoga teachers used to make students laugh during classes. One student asked him if these jokes would take away something from the yoga practice. The teacher said - don't be serious, be sincere. This quote has defined my work ever since. Whether its my writing, my job, my relationships or any of my goals. I get thousands of opinions on my writing everyday. There is heaps of praise, there is intense criticism. If I take it all seriously, how will I write? Or rather, how will I live? Life is not to be taken seriously, as we are really temporary here. We are like a pre-paid card with limited validity. If we are lucky, we may last another 50 years. And 50 years is just 2,500 weekends. Do we really need to get so worked up? It's ok, bunk a few classes, goof up a few interviews, fall in love. We are people, not programmed devices. 

I've told you three things - reasonable goals, balance and not taking it too seriously that will nurture the spark. However, there are four storms in life that will threaten to completely put out the flame. These must be guarded against. These are disappointment, frustration, unfairness and loneliness of purpose. 

Disappointment will come when your effort does not give you the expected return. If things don't go as planned or if you face failure. Failure is extremely difficult to handle, but those that do come out stronger. What did this failure teach me? is the question you will need to ask. You will feel miserable. You will want to quit, like I wanted to when nine publishers rejected my first book. Some IITians kill themselves over low grades – how silly is that? But that is how much failure can hurt you. But it's life. If challenges could always be overcome, they would cease to be a challenge. And remember - if you are failing at something, that means you are at your limit or potential. And that's where you want to be. 

Disappointment's cousin is frustration, the second storm. Have you ever been frustrated? It happens when things are stuck. This is especially relevant in India. From traffic jams to getting that job you deserve, sometimes things take so long that you don't know if you chose the right goal. After books, I set the goal of writing for Bollywood, as I thought they needed writers. I am called extremely lucky, but it took me five years to get close to a release. Frustration saps excitement, and turns your initial energy into something negative, making you a bitter person. How did I deal with it? A realistic assessment of the time involved – movies take a long time to make even though they are watched quickly, seeking a certain enjoyment in the process rather than the end result – at least I was learning how to write scripts, having a side plan – I had my third book to write and even something as simple as pleasurable distractions in your life - friends, food, travel can help you overcome it. Remember, nothing is to be taken seriously. Frustration is a sign somewhere, you took it too seriously. 

Unfairness - this is hardest to deal with, but unfortunately that is how our country works. People with connections, rich dads, beautiful faces, pedigree find it easier to make it – not just in Bollywood, but everywhere. And sometimes it is just plain luck. There are so few opportunities in India, so many stars need to be aligned for you to make it happen. Merit and hard work is not always linked to achievement in the short term, but the long term correlation is high, and ultimately things do work out. But realize, there will be some people luckier than you. I have so much love from my readers that other writers cannot even imagine it. However, I don't get literary praise. It's ok. I don't look like Aishwarya Rai, but I have two boys who I think are more beautiful than her. It's ok. Don't let unfairness kill your spark. 

Finally, the last point that can kill your spark is isolation. As you grow older you will realize you are unique. When you are little, all kids want Ice cream and Spiderman. As you grow older to college, you still are a lot like your friends. But ten years later and you realize you are unique. What you want, what you believe in, what makes you feel, may be different from even the people closest to you. This can create conflict as your goals may not match with others. . And you may drop some of them. Basketball captains in college invariably stop playing basketball by the time they have their second child. They give up something that meant so much to them. They do it for their family. But in doing that, the spark dies. Never, ever make that compromise. Love yourself first, and then others. 

There you go. I've told you the four thunderstorms - disappointment, frustration, unfairness and isolation. You cannot avoid them, as like the monsoon they will come into your life at regular intervals. You just need to keep the raincoat handy to not let the spark die. 

I welcome you again to the most wonderful years of your life. If someone gave me the choice to go back in time, I will surely choose college. But I also hope that ten years later as well, your eyes will shine the same way as they do today. That you will Keep the Spark alive, not only through college, but through the next 2,500 weekends. And I hope not just you, but my whole country will keep that spark alive, as we really need it now more than any moment in history. And there is something cool about saying - I come from the land of a billion sparks. 

Thank You! 

Oprah's career advice: follow your gut

Check article at: http://wealth.moneycontrol.com/features/moving-ahead/oprahs-career-advice-follow-your-gut-/9011/0

This is pretty cool.